Intel has signed three of Europe’s largest retailers - Metro, Tesco and Carrefour - to help it push through the Electronic Product Code (EPC) standards at the heart of RFID tagging across the continent.
The working group, called the EPC Retail Users Group of Europe, was announced last week at the NRF annual conference in New York.
It will take up the cudgels for EPC Global, the non-profit organisation responsible for RFID’s commercial application, itself newly formed from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Auto ID Centre.
The EPC Retail Users Group will provide a forum for other European retailers to share methods for implementing RFID technology. Tesco and Metro are widely regarded as the two most progressive users of RFID outside the US.
Intel is co-ordinating this initiative as a vehicle for its Centrino mobile device and Itanium server chips.
The three retailers all have an interest in getting more of their peers involved to share the burden of research and development of RFID.
In a statement, Carrefour director of business to business Jeremy Hollows said: ‘Carrefour is participating in this initiative in order to ensure that this exciting new technology is implemented globally in an efficient way for suppliers and retailers, so that consumers can get better availability of products with better value.’
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