Innovation and research have certainly played a key role driving the development of the beauty industry in recent years. Constant improvements to the quality and safety of the products we use every day have been achieved by researching and implementing new technologies that optimize supply chain processes and company management. To remain competitive on the main international markets, it is necessary to adopt increasingly advanced software and hardware tools that provide improved control over manufacturing, data management and analysis. The result is a product that meets elevated standards for sustainability, resource optimization and consumer safety.

Monica Coffano, Business Development Manager at Antares Vision, joined us to look at the best tech solutions for the challenges that the beauty industry faces every day as it shapes its own future.

Ms. Coffano, given your experience in this sector, what are the points of contact between the beauty industry and the food and pharmaceutical sectors? Plus, what kind of technologies are unique to the production of cosmetics?

Antares Vision has become an international leader in the pharmaceutical sector for its quality control systems, the hardware and software solutions called Track & Trace (to fight counterfeiting and improve supply chain transparency), and smart data management (manufacturing efficiency and supply chain digitalization, from raw material to end consumer). With the know-how it has accrued in over twenty years, Antares Vision is becoming a go-to partner in the cosmetics industry, which must meet demands from both consumers, who are increasingly informed and want transparency and guarantees from their products, and from the manufacturing world, where the challenge is to achieve efficiency and optimization, as well as sustainability. The attention of consumers and companies to the safety of cosmetic products has grown exponentially with demand for products that are free from toxins and the need to select cosmetics that are reliable and effective as well as sustainable in terms of both the supply chain and manufacturing processes. Many brands have grasped the importance of Safe Beauty providing certifications and scientific evidence to guarantee product safety, demonstrate transparency and meet the demands of the public. On its own, a brand is no longer sufficient. New consumers want information about the origin and ethics of the raw materials and about the social and environmental policies followed by the companies. To meet these new transparency requirements, it is necessary to rely on a technological partner that offers solutions specifically designed for the beauty industry and capable of guaranteeing transparency across the supply chain, as well as the safety of the product (and the consumer) at every point of the supply chain all the way to the end consumer. 

What tech innovations has your company adopted in recent months, and what did you have to do to adapt to the effects of the pandemic?

One of the consequences of the pandemic was certainly an explosion in online sales, and the trend seems to keep growing. Due to the existence of counterfeits and the proliferation of parallel markets, this trend has had negative consequences on the beauty sector, damaging both brands reputation and consumer health. As a result, the level of attention to the origin of raw materials, the safety of products, and the packaging used is even greater. Convinced as we are that guaranteeing the origin and tracing the journey of any product is both a fundamental safety requirement and, above all, a tool to increase brand value, our response to these needs was to introduce technological innovations. That is why we coined the expression Trustparency™, which summarizes in one word the trust that can be generated when the supply chain is transparent from the raw material all the way to the consumer. TrackMyWay, for example, is a platform dedicated to traceability 4.0 that we created to provide common ground for producers, distributors, and consumers. By scanning a QR CODE – an element that is proving increasingly useful for digital connections between people, objects, and services – the transparency of the supply chain and distribution channels can be guaranteed, tracking products and processes, and sharing data and information between all the actors in the manufacturing journey. Talking about our production, we developed AVionics, a software that collects, processes, and manages data – thanks also to AI algorithms – to provide valuable information about the line, plant, and company in real time. These solutions have helped Antares Vision to become a go-to partner for a sector as demanding as the beauty industry, which is one of our nation's flagship sectors as well as one of the segments that has been significantly reshaped by the current health crisis.