Today celebrates one year since the go-live of the EU TPD (Tobacco Product Directive) in Europe. Dentsu Tracking, a brand of Dentsu Aegis Network, is collaborating with the European Commission and 27 Member States to design and operate the technical solution for supply chain control across the European tobacco industry, in compliance with the WHO FCTC Protocol.

This is by far the world’s largest platform in terms of total events and products tracked. To date, the system has tracked more than 32 billion products and 5 billion events occurring at more than 750 thousand registered Economic Operators across 27 EU Member States.

The EU TPD solution brings a new global precedent for government supply chain control. The current design and architecture set a new technical standard, and the insights from this first year fully confirm its success,” said Philippe Castella, Managing Director, Dentsu Tracking.

“The European model ensures rigorous standards for compliance and takes an innovative approach to the Protocol by demanding full traceability at every step in the supply chain. This may become the model for future supply chain innovation and regulation across other industries, like alcohol and beverages”.

Innovating with governments to fight illicit trade

Across the EU, governments and law enforcement agencies now have a tool that enables full visibility across the total tobacco supply chain.  

“The system is a tool for authorities to help implement supply chain control policies based on data-driven insights across large data lakes and to use these insights to reduce the availability of illicit products”, said Benjamin Phelip, Sales & Marketing Director, Dentsu Tracking 

Country government and authorities can use the data and visibility from the EU Secondary Repository (designed, implemented, and operated by Dentsu Tracking) to identify out-of-normal trade patterns and to enable further innovation in tobacco control policy to help fight against illicit trade.

Dentsu Tracking’s solution ensures near real-time availability of data, meaning an almost instant response to macro-level queries, (for example, identification of trends and anomalies, or market statistics) or micro-level queries (for example, inspection and verification of a single cigarette pack, a specific warehouse, or a specific truck).

This solution is more rigorous than any existing system due both to its size and to the regulatory requirement for online enforcement. Online enforcement means that data is not just being passively stored. Instead, at every step there is a process of data reporting, validation, and authorization, all happening in less than sixty seconds.

This means billions of unique packs, being tracked at thousands of sites from manufacturers to retailers across Europe. 

Links: For further information on the EU regulatory framework to fight illicit trade in tobacco products, please visit the European Commission. See also the WHO FCTC Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products.

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