RFID label printing is becoming part of the packaging conversation for a practical reason: major retailers are now requiring RFID tags for certain products in order to track the product lifecycle. Walmart’s requirements for clothing and other covered merchandise are bringing electronic identification into jobs that once centered on artwork, barcodes and finishing.

For printers and converters, this is a development worth following. Customers supplying those retailers need labels and tags that serve both the brand and the retailer’s inventory systems. Meanwhile, European digital watermark initiatives are exploring another way to make printed packaging carry machine-readable information.

The technologies differ, but the direction is clear. Packaging is taking on a larger role in how products are identified, tracked and sorted. Understanding that shift will help converters recognize what customers are asking for and where new demand is coming from.

Retailer Requirements Are Driving Demand

Big retailers like Walmart now require RFID tags for covered apparel sold through its U.S. stores. Its Supply Chain Packaging Guide describes how RFID can be incorporated into familiar formats, including hangtags, backer cards and labels. For brands in those categories, RFID is already part of the packaging requirement.

Macy’s also has RFID/EPC requirements for designated merchandise departments. These programs give brands a concrete reason to bring RFID into discussions with their packaging and label partners. The demand begins with the retailer’s need to identify merchandise and flows back through the supply chain to the printed tag or label.

Decathlon offers another example of adoption across a retail business. The sporting goods company says all of its products carried RFID tags fitted at manufacture by 2019. By 2024, it reported close to 50,000 readers across factories, warehouses and stores. That connects the tag on the product with multiple stages of its journey to the customer.

For packaging businesses, Decathlon’s experience is particularly relevant because its rollout involved packaging changes. The company describes replacing aluminum-containing packaging on certain nutrition products and badminton shuttlecock tubes to accommodate RFID. Identification requirements can therefore influence packaging design decisions as well as the label or tag applied to the finished item.

RFID labels can help retailers identify individual items within the same product line. That item-level visibility supports inventory management, helping connect the products on a shelf or in a stockroom with the records used to manage them.

For the converter, the significance is straightforward: the printed piece now does more. A clothing hangtag still needs to present the brand, size and price clearly, while also carrying the electronic identity used by the retailer. Print remains a visible part of the package, with an added function behind it.

RFID Is Already Operating at Scale

The RAIN Alliance, the industry association for UHF RFID, reports that four leading member manufacturers shipped 42.7 billion RAIN tag chips globally in 2025. Those shipments cover applications across industries, rather than printed labels alone, but they illustrate the scale of the technology.

The Alliance’s 2025 report also notes continued adoption and new-program expansion despite a decline in chip shipments that year. Retailer requirements are one part of that broader story. RFID has moved well beyond an unfamiliar concept, and packaging suppliers are encountering it through established commercial programs.

For a label business, that makes awareness useful even before an RFID inquiry arrives. Following customer markets and retailer packaging requirements can reveal where demand may affect existing accounts. A brand entering a new retail channel may bring different identification requirements along with its next artwork revision.

Europe’s Digital Watermark Work Points to Another Use for Print

In Europe, the HolyGrail initiatives show how printed packaging can also help with identification after a product has been used. AIM, the European Brands Association, brought together organizations across the packaging value chain through HolyGrail 2.0 to test digital watermarks for sorting packaging waste.

Digital watermarks are codes incorporated into packaging artwork that are largely invisible to the eye. Cameras can read them and retrieve information such as the packaging material or whether it was used for food. On a sorting line, that information can help direct packaging into the appropriate material stream.

The follow-on HolyGrail 2030 – Circular Packaging consortium focuses on demonstrating the business value of intelligent sorting and creating higher-quality recycled material streams. Its scope includes flexible and rigid polypropylene packaging, connecting the identification carried by packaging with work further along the recycling chain.

A Belgian market demonstration makes that work more concrete. Fost Plus, Belgium’s household packaging organization and a project partner, describes a trial using digitally watermarked flexible polypropylene packaging for snacks and food products. Participating brands include PepsiCo, Mondelēz International, Ferrero and pladis. The packaging enters ordinary distribution and collection channels before camera-based sorting separates food packaging from non-food packaging.

The real-world conditions matter: a discarded pack may be folded, dirty or damaged. The project is evaluating whether identification still works under those conditions, followed by recycling, new-film production and food-safety assessment. Fost Plus lists the full report for 2027. For converters watching the sector, this is a specific example of brands putting machine-readable artwork into packaging used by consumers.

For printers, this gives the artwork another job. The design communicates with the consumer while its watermark communicates with a camera. The ability to reproduce machine-readable information becomes part of the value of the printed package.

RFID uses a chip and antenna; a printed digital watermark uses an optical code. Their applications and production needs differ, but both developments show why converters should follow the wider role of identification in packaging.

A Little RFID Background Goes a Long Way

Here’s how RFID labels work: an inlay contains a chip and antenna, incorporated into a label or tag. In a passive UHF system, a compatible reader supplies radio-frequency energy and receives the tag’s response. An encoded identifier can distinguish one item from another.

Printing creates the visible information; encoding writes the electronic identifier. RFID label printing software can help manage that connection. The retailer’s specification establishes what its program requires, so understanding the customer’s intended application is a useful starting point for any conversation.

That background puts the industry news in context. The larger story for converters is the growing expectation that packaging will communicate with business systems as well as people. Retail tagging programs and European watermark initiatives are making that expectation tangible.

What This Means for Printers and Converters

Keep RFID label printing and related identification technologies on your radar. Follow the requirements affecting your customers, understand the basic terminology and bring identification into packaging discussions early. Retailers are already using these systems, and European initiatives are exploring additional roles for machine-readable packaging.

These developments also broaden who needs to be involved in a packaging conversation. Brand teams still care about appearance and shelf presence, while retail operations need usable item information and recycling projects need identifiable material streams. A converter who understands those different objectives can help customers explain the intended role of the package before detailed production discussions begin. The immediate value is knowing which questions belong in the conversation and when to involve an identification specialist.

For converters, staying informed creates a better basis for recognizing an opportunity, discussing a customer’s needs and deciding where specialist support fits. The printed label is increasingly part of a larger information system, and that is a development the industry needs to understand.

Incorporating RFID in the Printing Process

Printers and converters in the labels segment are now making labels with RFIDs, but RFIDs also have a role in printers’ and converters’ own operations. A&V’s Intelligent Vendor Managed Inventory (AVMI) system uses RFID-enabled racks to monitor tagged pressroom supplies and support replenishment, including purchase orders for approval. Using RFID labels for inventory gives staff clearer stock information and can reduce manual counting and ordering work. It’s just another way that practical application of tracking technology is allowing companies to be more efficient and effective in tracking the product lifecycle.