Innovative Strategies for Tackling Counterfeiting

Counterfeiting is a global challenge and not just limited to medicines and luxury products - in fact, in fact every product is counterfeited. In 2021, German customs authorities seized counterfeit products worth more than 315 million euros (source: German Federal Ministry of Finance, Der Zoll - Daten und Fakten im Überblick).

In addition to financial aspects, consumer protection plays a particularly important role in tackling counterfeiting. Substandard or inherently dangerous ingredients can cause serious damage to health. It is therefore increasingly important for companies to take an active stance against illegal competitors.

In order to effectively protect their company and their brands against counterfeiting and imitation, many companies are successfully using brand protection technologies, such as serialization and track & trace, to enable detailed traceability along the distribution channel. In addition to technical solutions, companies also consider targeted brand protection communication to be particularly useful.

These measures are also confirmed by a joint brand protection study by Karg und Petersen and Arvato Systems, in which more than 200 companies from a variety of industries and 15 European countries participated.