Illicit trade and product counterfeiting are serious problems affecting our member companies and their supply chains, authorities, consumers and patients. Unfortunately no sector is immune to the risks of this criminal activity. GS1 is working proactively with authorities, member companies and relevant stakeholders to enable GS1 standards to be a valuable component to any solution targeted at detecting, deterring and disrupting counterfeit and illicit trade activities.

The “Recommendations for EU Regulation 2018/574 implementation while minimising retail supply chain disruption” provides suggestions to MOs on how to minimise retail supply chain issues while correctly implementing the recent EU tobacco track and trace rules to fight against illicit trade.

The document includes MOs recommendations for a consistent GS1 standards-based implementation of the new EU regulation taking into account:

• B2B trade (e.g., distributor to wholesaler or retailer, wholesaler to trading partner, retail DC to stores) where GS1-based, aggregate level identification is used
• B2B trade where GS1-based, aggregate level identification is unavailable (e.g., broken cartons to restock vending machines, large ‘make your own’ containers, damaged cartons)
• Barcode implementation
• How to avoid POS disruption of non-GS1 identifiers / barcodes on unit packs
• Human-Readable Text
• Data Sharing practices

In case of questions please write to fit@gs1.org