
In the fast-paced, high-volume business of brewing, it’s easy to overlook the exact location of every single keg in your inventory. Counterargument: It’s also pretty easy these days to know exactly where every single keg is in a fleet. Almost anything can be tracked with some sort of technology, and it doesn’t have to be crazy expensive or overly complicated. What if you just slapped a bunch of ultra-durable RFID tags on your kegs that worked with a simple cloud-based software to virtual inventory your armada of kegs? What if you could also track tap handles, pallets and beyond with those tags?
Nashville-based Keg Hounds has already added its tracking tags to nearly 100,000 kegs, and now it’s just announced an upgrade in RFID tech via an agreement with Omni-ID, the No. 1 industrial RFID tag provider in the world. Omni-ID will now manufacture the tag that is central to the Keg Hounds keg tracking and data management solution. These Keg Hounds RFID tag designs require no welding, adhesives or special tools to install. They are fully IP68, water, weather dust and particle proof, with an estimated 10-year+ lifespan. Omni-ID has built a reputation based on trusted, field proven designs that stand up to the harshest industrial environments. They work on everything from kegs to tap handles to your red Swingline stapler. From the press release:
“As the leading on-metal RFID tag producer in the world, Omni-ID is a great partner for Keg Hounds,” said Earl Hewlette, CEO of Keg Hounds. “Omni-ID’s ability to scale production, combined with their cutting-edge technology, has greatly improved the performance of our tag. On top of that, they also have the production capabilities to allow us to keep up with demand. We recently passed 100,000 tags on kegs, and at the rate that our sales are increasing, one of our biggest concerns has been having enough tags to meet demand — an issue that, thanks to Omni-ID, we no longer face.”
Across the United States, approximately $100 million worth of kegs are lost in distribution each year. For sure there are lots of data tracking solutions and services on the market for kegs — brewers can even outsource or rent their fleet of kegs — but if ownership is your business plan these Keg Hounds RFID tags are an interesting option.
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