Ohio-based Avery Dennison is using RFID technology to help Walmart address food waste and ensure freshness for consumers, producers and retailers.

This technology could transform inventory processes and enhance staff and customer experiences across fresh departments, particularly bakery, meat and deli.

Looking to develop a way to use RFID technology in high-moisture, cold environments, such as meat cases, Walmart teamed with Avery Dennison to create and test a sensor technology that brings RFID-enabled labels to the meat department. By using Avery Dennison’s RFID technology in meat, along with bakery and the deli department, Walmart staff can track inventory faster and more accurately, making sure products stay stocked and ready when customers want them.

With digital use-by dates at their fingertips, staff can also rotate products more efficiently and make smarter markdown decisions, helping cut down on unsold food.

“We believe technology should make things easier for both our associates and our customers,” said Christyn Keef, vice president at Walmart. “By cutting down on manual work, we’re giving our associates more time to focus on what really matters, helping our customers.”

Julie Vargas, vice president at Avery Dennison, added: “Supporting Walmart with first-to-market RFID innovation across multiple fresh food categories underscores our mutual commitment to people and the planet. By giving each item its own digital identity, associates instantly know the freshness of the foods they are handling, enabling better inventory management and resulting in less waste.”

The collaboration also ties with Walmart’s broader sustainability goals, including its aim to cut global operational food loss and waste intensity in half by 2030. By introducing automated item-level identification, Walmart and Avery Dennison are transforming how fresh food is managed, making operations smarter, faster and more sustainable.

Avery Dennison (www.averydennison.com) designs and develops labelling and functional materials, RFID inlays and tags, software applications that connect the physical and digital, and offerings that enhance branded packaging and carry or display information that improves the customer experience. It employs 35,000 people in more than 50 countries. It reported sales in 2024 of $8.8 bn.

Each week, approximately 270 million customers and members visit more than 10,750 Walmart (corporate.walmart.com) stores and ecommerce web sites in 19 countries. With 2025 revenue of $681bn, Walmart employs approximately 2.1 million people worldwide.