Albertsons Joins RFID Trend

Albertsons Inc., the $36 billion food and drug retailer, said last week that its top 100 suppliers must participate in its radio-frequency identification program by April 2005. Albertsons' RFID strategy is similar to those of the Department of Defense, Metro Group, Target, and Wal-Mart Stores. Albertsons' suppliers will need to tag all cases and pallets with RFID tags. Albertsons is an active member of EPCglobal, which oversees standards for RFID.