2025 Was a Year of Progress for RFID and IoT

For many years after Walmart first announced it planned to use RFID to track pallets and cases – that was way back in 2005 – analysts and prognosticators have predicted that “this will be the year RFID takes off.”  Each year, there was disappointment that the technology didn’t, in Geoffrey Moore’s term, enter the tornado. This year has been no different. No massive acceleration of adoption, but like most of the past few years, it was period of great progress for the RFID/Internet of Things industry.

One of the biggest stories this year was that Walmart is using passive UHF RFID labels developed by Avery Dennison to track fresh meat (see Walmart, Avery Dennison Expand RFID Use in Grocery Section).

Meat is challenging to track because the high moisture content of the product absorbs RF energy in the UHF spectrum, which means less energy gets to the tag, rendering it difficult to read. The engineers at Avery have developed a special technology to overcome this challenge.

Following the Lead of Walmart

Walmart doesn’t break out sales of fresh meat in its earnings reports, but some analysts estimate it sells more than $5 billion worth per year. If the average price of a package is $10, that’s half a billion tags per year. But what makes this story so important is Walmart’s decision to use RFID to track meat is going to greatly speed adoption of RFID in the fresh produce sector, an area that was already seeing positive growth.

The technology allows Walmart store associates to track individual packages of meat, discount the price of meats nearing their expiration date and remove any items passed their sell-by date. It should reduce waste and increase the quality of meat for Walmart customers.

For these reasons, I expect Walmart’s competitors to quickly adopt the technology. In 2024, 22.8 billion pounds of meat, valued at $104.6 billion, were sold at U.S. grocery stores. If the average package is $10, then the RFID industry can look forward to an additional 10 billion in tags sold each year in the not-too-distant future.

Qualcomm New Chipset

Another key development this year was the announcement by Qualcomm that it has added passive UHF reading capability to its Dragonwing Q-6690 mobile chipset, which also includes built-in 5G, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, and ultra-wideband. The chip is designed to be used in a wide range devices, including ruggedized handhelds, retail point-of-sale systems, and smart kiosks.

Just as smartphones now all come with NFC capabilities, it is likely that Qualcomm’s decision means most handheld computers/data collection devices will eventually be made with passive UHF RFID reading capability. That means companies wanting to use RFID will not need to buy a whole new set of equipment. Instead, they can just start using the RFID capability already in their handhelds.  This lowers one barrier to adoption.

Preparing for DPP

This year also saw a number of companies implement RFID solutions to create Digital Product Passports (DPPs) and comply with the European Union’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which is expected to be enforced from 2028.

Amundsen Sports, a Norwegian outdoor lifestyle brand, for example, has teamed with Trimco Group to test how the retailer can be operationally and data-ready for the DPP by implementing it on their new 100% merino wool Hero’s Hide Collection base layer (see Amundsen Pilots DPP Solution with Trimco Group). RFID is expected to make collecting the data required by DPP regulations much easier.

GS1 and the RAIN Alliance issued a joint position paper highlighting the value of using RAIN RFID (passive UHF) with GS1 identifiers to capture the data required to create DPPs (see Advancing DPPs with GS1 Identifiers and RAIN Technology). The RAIN Alliance, which represents mainly UHF RFID tag and reader providers, says its technology is a well-positioned to be the data carrier solution for DPPs.

These are just three of the most notable developments of 2025. The year saw continued adoption of RFID in retail, logistics, supply chain and other applications. It’s likely that more than 60 billion UHF RFID chips were consumed this year. And with the developments in fresh produce and other areas, it won’t be long before 100 billion chips are being consumed each year.