Personal care giant Unilever has got involved in a three-year project called Scope led by The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) to develop world class near-field communication (NFC) packaging in the UK.

Joining a consortium with other brands, Unilever will work towards the project’s goal of “building the manufacturing capability, capacity and skills required to commercialise and position the UK as a world leader in smart products – a fast growing billion dollar global market.”

Mike Clausen, programme manager at CPI said: “Going forward the next steps are to upscale the manufacturing process to ensure that these novel NFC applications are produced at the cost and speeds that industry demands. To do this, we are currently developing the capability to scale up these production processes to produce market trial samples of up to 50,000-100,000 tags.”

Part of the £10 million collaborative project will look at manufacturing NFC products for less than one pence, with the project covering industries such as FMCG, games, beverages, and security.

Co-funded by the Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI) the project will also provide a platform to develop second generation second-generation opportunities within other key UK sectors including healthcare, food, energy, built-environment, defence and transport, according to The Drum.