Wal-Mart (WMT.US) and Avery Dennison (AVY.US) announced a strategic partnership on Wednesday to implement a new radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology in Wal-Mart's fresh food departments, including bakeries, meat, and deli sections. Avery Dennison is a global company providing RFID solutions widely used across various industries such as retail, healthcare, logistics, and aviation. This initiative marks the first such solution in the industry, featuring RFID smart tags and sensor technology designed specifically for high-humidity, low-temperature environments like meat coolers, overcoming long-standing technological barriers.

The application of this technology is expected to enable Wal-Mart employees to track inventory more quickly and accurately, ensuring product availability while improving operational efficiency. It will also facilitate smarter product rotation and markdown decisions based on digital shelf-life information. The project aims to reduce unsold food and food waste, directly supporting Wal-Mart's goal to halve food loss and waste intensity in global operations by 2030. Both companies operate on a massive scale worldwide, with Wal-Mart serving approximately 270 million customers weekly and Avery Dennison projected to achieve $8.8 billion in sales across over 50 countries in 2024. Christyn Keef, Vice President of Front-End Transformation at Wal-Mart U.S., stated, "We believe that technology should make life easier for both our associates and our customers."