Counterfeit activity affects nearly every industry. The OECD and EUIPO’s Mapping Global Trade in Fakes 2025 report estimates that $467 billion in counterfeit and pirated products entered global trade in 2021, equal to roughly 2.3% of worldwide imports.
Although those numbers span all categories of goods, regulated supply chains feel the impact acutely because authenticity and traceability influence safety, compliance, and operational oversight.
Organizations face issues such as:
Teams in industries such as pharmaceuticals, animal health, food and beverage, automotive, and consumer products now look for technology that strengthens oversight without disrupting existing workflows. A combination of product authentication technology, serialization and traceability, and advanced security labels helps limit counterfeit infiltration and supports verification throughout distribution.
This post outlines how anti-counterfeit technology functions across industries and how serialization, authentication, and brand protection solutions contribute to stronger supply chain performance.
Key Takeaways
Counterfeiting continues to expand across regulated and non-regulated sectors. Recent findings show the scale and diversity of the issue:
These figures show how easily counterfeiters exploit weaknesses in distribution, particularly when verification relies on simple barcodes or disconnected documentation. Supply chain and regulatory teams now look for tools that support consistent authentication during packaging, shipping, receiving, and field inspections.
Anti-counterfeit technology is an umbrella term covering multiple layers of physical and digital protection. Supply chain and quality teams typically work with a combination of the following categories.
Serialization creates a unique identifier for each saleable unit. When managed through track and trace systems, these identifiers help supply chain teams confirm where a product was manufactured, how it moved through distribution, and whether its handling aligns with regulatory or internal requirements.
Key elements include:
In pharmaceuticals, serialization supports DSCSA requirements. Sectors like animal health, food and beverage, and automotive increasingly adopt similar approaches to detect unauthorized product, reduce returns fraud, and maintain chain-of-custody clarity.
Solutions such as Covectra’s AuthentiTrack provide an example of how organizations use serialization and traceability to manage regulated workflows, communicate with trading partners, and maintain supply chain authentication from packaging lines to downstream distributors.
Physical security features make it more difficult for counterfeiters to recreate packaging, labels, or product identifiers. These features can be overt, covert, or forensic in nature.
Common approaches include:
These security layers create a visible or scannable signature that is difficult to replicate. When paired with digital verification, they become an important part of brand protection solutions for pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, cosmetics, automotive parts, and food and beverage products.
For example, anti-counterfeiting solutions like Covectra’s StellaGuard integrate overt and covert physical elements with mobile authentication, enabling inspectors, retailers, or customers to confirm authenticity with a simple scan.
Authentication tools give stakeholders a direct way to validate products during transit, at receiving checkpoints, or at point of sale. These tools often rely on:
This combination helps supply chain teams monitor incoming goods, flag unexpected serial numbers, identify potential diversion, and confirm whether a product matches its digital identity. Mobile verification is particularly useful in industries where inspectors and retailers operate across diverse environments, such as animal health, consumer goods, food distribution, and automotive service networks.
Track and trace systems support supply chain authentication through real-time or near-real-time visibility as goods move between trading partners. These systems help teams:
Serialization data feeds into these systems, allowing quality and regulatory teams to validate both product identity and movement patterns. When traceability is paired with authentication, organizations gain a more dependable way to detect counterfeit activity and prevent misuse of legitimate packaging.
Pharmaceutical supply chains operate under strict regulatory and operational expectations, and anti-counterfeit technology supports several core workflows.
Serialized identifiers, advanced security labels, and mobile scanning give pharmacies, distributors, and wholesalers reliable ways to confirm product origin.
Authentication tools help teams review products when anomalies appear at receiving, during audits, or in response to market reports.
Systems that manage serialization and traceability help manufacturers, repackagers, 3PLs, and dispensers maintain required data and respond to verification requests.
Unique codes and authentication layers help identify products returned under fraudulent conditions or relabeled for secondary markets.
On-product authentication tools give downstream partners ways to validate products independently, strengthening trust across distribution networks.
Using solutions like AuthentiTrack for serialization and StellaGuard-style authentication as an illustrative example, manufacturers can combine physical and digital layers to reduce inconsistencies and strengthen oversight across audit points.
Organizations outside pharmaceutical manufacturing face similar risks, including:
Here are examples of how anti-counterfeit technology supports each sector.
Part authenticity affects safety, performance, and warranty integrity. Serialization and advanced security labels help parts distributors and service centers confirm authenticity, especially for high-value components.
Vaccines, feed additives, and medications require reliable verification. Authentication technology helps veterinarians and distributors confirm label integrity and detect relabeling or repackaging attempts.
Brand protection solutions guard against counterfeit spirits, oils, supplements, and packaged foods. Security labels provide visible tamper evidence and help retailers validate product origin in the food and beverage sector.
High-value consumer goods — including electronics and personal care products — benefit from authentication methods that help retailers and customers confirm packaging integrity and detect counterfeit entries sold through unauthorized marketplaces.
Most supply chain teams rely on a layered approach that includes:
The combination helps organizations detect inconsistencies earlier, respond to verification requests faster, and limit the likelihood of counterfeit entries.
A reliable anti-counterfeit strategy often includes:
1. Scalable serialization and traceability
Support for EPCIS data exchange and unit-level identifiers.
2. Mobile-friendly authentication tools
Scanning methods that work for distributors, retailers, and inspectors.
3. Multi-layered advanced security labels
A mix of overt and covert markers integrated into the packaging.
4. Integration with ERP, WMS, and packaging-line systems
For consistent data flow and validation during key events.
5. Real-time visibility into verification activity
Useful for detecting diversion or unusual scanning patterns.
6. Support for cross-industry deployments
Pharma, automotive, consumer goods, food and beverage, and animal health.
Solutions like AuthentiTrack and StellaGuard offer a reference example of how these capabilities function together in an integrated authentication and traceability environment.
Anti-counterfeit technology supports more reliable supply chain authentication by combining serialization and traceability, advanced security labels, and product-level verification. These tools help organizations confirm product origin, detect irregularities earlier, and reduce opportunities for counterfeit entries across pharmaceuticals, animal health, automotive, food and beverage, and consumer products.
You may be assessing solutions that reinforce existing workflows while improving supply chain authentication. We design our serialization and authentication technologies to meet those needs. Don’t hesitate to contact us to start a conversation. We are here to help.
Pharmaceuticals, automotive, animal health, consumer goods, and food and beverage companies regularly use serialization, authentication tools, and security labels to protect against counterfeit entries and product diversion.
Serialization assigns a unique identifier to each packaging level, allowing supply chain teams to verify product origin, track movement, and identify inconsistencies in custody or labeling.
Many modern authentication tools rely on a combination of optical markers, cloud-based verification, and unique label signatures, giving inspectors and retailers practical ways to confirm authenticity.
Labels with multi-layer, randomized, or optically variable elements create packaging signatures that are difficult to replicate, especially when paired with mobile verification.
Many products use security labels or serialization techniques to provide visible tamper evidence, enable authentication during audits, and support brand protection in distribution and retail environments.
Read More
Serialization in Pharma: Driving Compliance, Safety, and Traceability
EPCIS and DSCSA: How Serialization Supports Compliance
What Is Pharmaceutical Serialization and Why Is It Critical Today