Toppan Printing Co., Ltd.’s (hereafter Toppan Printing; head office: Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo; President & Representative Director: Shingo Kaneko) Cachet-Tag™—an NFC1 tag designed to ensure that removal breaks the antenna circuit and makes reading impossible— has been selected for use on all Grand Cru wines produced by Domaine Ponsot, a high-end wine producer based in Burgundy, France. Shipments of products using Cachet-Tag commenced in October 2018.

　If the Cachet-Tag is removed from the wine bottle, the NFC tag breaks and the data on it can no longer be read. This can prevent relabeling and other types of fraud and is an effective measure against counterfeit and imitation products. When scanned with an NFC-enabled smartphone, the data stored on the IC chip can be read by a dedicated app provided by Selinko SA (head office: Belgium; CEO：Patrick Eischen), a company expert in authentication, gray market detection, and marketing services for connected objects. The result of authentication is then displayed on the smartphone screen to enable easy verification. The technology can also be used as a tool to provide consumers with product-related and other information.

　Domaine Ponsot is a Burgundy-based producer of high-end wines. Due to the rarity and excellent reputation of its wines, Domaine Ponsot has led the high-end wine market in introducing advanced counterfeit prevention technologies in response to damage to its brand caused by counterfeit products for more than 20 years. In constant pursuit of excellence and improvement, Domaine Ponsot has recently chosen to use the Cachet-Tag to ensure robust security measures for its Grand Cru wines.

© Toppan Printing Co., Ltd.

Background

　The distribution of counterfeit and imitation goods has expanded on a global scale in recent years, and forms of fraudulent distribution are diversifying. Wines and spirits are also targets of counterfeiting, and the continued circulation of such counterfeit and imitation products can reduce the sales revenue of authentic products and damage brand value.
　Domaine Ponsot, a producer of high-end wines in Burgundy, France, has chosen to use Cachet-Tag on its Grand Cru products. In addition to helping prevent fraudulent distribution and counterfeit and imitation goods, Cachet-Tag can be used as a tool to provide consumers with such information as details on the product, storage methods, and advice on dishes that complement the wine.

Features of Cachet-Tag

・Prevention of fraud with brittle processing

　Cachet-Tag features a layer that has undergone special processing to make it brittle. When the label is removed, the antenna circuit and NFC tag are broken, preventing fraudulent relabeling and reuse.

・IC authentication based on generation of a unique code each time the tag is read

　Cachet-Tag uses NTAG® 413 DNA, an innovative, high-security IC chip with a cryptographic authentication function produced by NXP® Semiconductors. When the NFC tag is read, both ID information and unique authentication code information are acquired. High-level security is ensured as authentication information differs for each individual product and each NFC phone tap, whereby the result of the generation of the unique code is assessed in the cloud.

・NFC tag authentication can be performed with a smartphone (Google Android / Apple iOS)

　Products can be authenticated and information acquired without a dedicated reading device because the result of authentication can be displayed on screen after simply reading with a consumer’s NFC-enabled smartphone.

Future targets

　Toppan Printing intends to expand sales of Cachet-Tag for such applications as high-end wine bottles and packaging for high-end cosmetics and medical and pharmaceutical products. The company is targeting sales revenue for the product, including related services, of approximately 1 billion yen (US$　8.8 million) in fiscal 2020. Toppan Printing will also continue to develop and offer smart packages featuring NFC tags and other advanced technologies.
　Cachet-Tag will be on display in the NXP Semiconductors booth at AIPIA World Congress, held at the Amsterdam Conference Centre Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam on November 19 and 20.

　"Toppan and Selinko bring us an even simpler, faster and more efficient solution to guarantee our customers the authenticity of our wines," said Rose-Marie Ponsot, Estate Manager of Domaine Ponsot.

　“Toppan Printing is proud to contribute to Domaine Ponsot’s innovation by bringing its know-how in the field of security, which has been accumulated through more than a century of designing highly secure systems,” said Toppan Europe CEO Hideo Yoshikawa. “The label selected by Domaine Ponsot is very easy for consumers to use for authentication and drastically reduces counterfeiting risk.”

About Toppan

　Toppan Printing is one of the world’s leading integrated printing companies. Since its founding in 1900, Toppan has expanded its operations significantly while driving the evolution of printing technologies and combining them with marketing, IT, creative capabilities, and diverse processing techniques to enable a wide range of solutions in the company’s three main business fields of Information & Communication, Living & Industry, and Electronics. Toppan employs more than 51,000 people globally and recorded sales of over \1.4 trillion in the year ended March 31, 2018.

For more information, visit http://www.toppan.co.jp/english/.

Contact:
Europe Roland Lartigue  Roland.Lartigue@toppan-europe.com
Japan Takuya Onuki  takuya.onuki@toppan.co.jp

About Domaine Ponsot

　Founded in Morey-Saint-Denis in 1872 by William Ponsot, Domaine Ponsot has been a pioneer of “bottling on the property” (1934) and export marketing (U.S.A., U.K., Italy since 1934). Today, it is one of the leading domaines of Burgundy, producing more than 60% of Grand Crus from Morey-Saint-Denis, Gevrey-Chambertin, and the Côte de Beaune and exporting its products to more than 40 countries. The two most iconic Domaine Ponsot wines produced since 1872 are:

Clos de la Roche Grand Cru

　An area of 3.40 ha including 2.80 ha in the historic Clos de la Roche climate (an area of 4.56 ha or 60% of this climate)

Morey-Saint-Denis 1er Cru Blanc "Clos des Monts-Luisants" Monopole

　The only raw white wine in Burgundy produced with the Aligoté grape variety. The grapes come from a vineyard planted in 1911 in the Clos des Monts-Luisants, where the Aligoté has been consistently cultivated since the beginning of the 19th century.

Domaine Ponsot

　21 rue de la Montagne, 21220, Morey-Saint-Denis, France

Contact: info@domaine-ponsot.com