Coca-Cola has partnered with NaviLens — the tech company harnessing code to empower visually impaired people — to integrate on-pack code allowing customers to access product information.
By scanning the code with the NaviLens app on a mobile phone, labelling information, such as allergens and recycling information, will be played as audio through the app. The code is designed to be scanned from up to four metres away, without requiring camera focus, to ensure that the process is as simple as possible.
Martin Attock, the VP for commercial development at Coca-Cola, commented that he was "proud to be working with NaviLens this year to make our packs and the Coca-Cola brand more inclusive."
While assistive technology is developing rapidly, the food and beverage industry has been slow to integrate it. Coca-Cola is the first beverage company to implement NaviLens’s technology, while Kellogg’s made the important first step for the broader grocery industry back in 2020, with the NaviLens code added permanently to its cereal boxes. Hopefully, more brands will follow their lead in the coming months and years.
In a world where full-sightedness is often taken for granted by supermarkets and brand marketing teams, implementing tech like NaviLens’s code is making much-needed strides for inclusivity in the food and beverage industry.