Southern California spirits company OTACA Tequila has released its first brand of smart bottled tequila that uses NFC to help it interact with customers and track products. By attaching an NFC tag to each bottle cap and capturing data on the blockchain, it allows customers to understand the story of its products, including the harvesting, distillation and long-term planning of raw materials, the company said.

The solution provided by Identiv, features a built-in NXP 13.56MHz NFC chip per tag, compliant with the ISO 14443 standard. Identiv provides applications and software for analytics, and SUKU provides blockchain data.

OTACA was established to provide quality boutique tequila. Anthony Accetta, the company's CEO and co-founder, said, "Our products are made using only fully mature agave cores (piña), which allows us to differentiate ourselves from the competition."

The company uses no additives or artificial flavors in its tequila and has its own proprietary cooling and distillation process. The boutique tequila spirits brand uses only blue Weber agave piña, grown exclusively in the lowlands of the town of El Arenal, Jalisco, Mexico, by cutting off the outer leaves of the agave grass when it matures and taking its center part.

Each hand-selected agave piña is harvested after eight years at optimal maturity, then fermented, double filtered and double distilled through a proprietary cooling process. The end result, the company explained, is tequila that can be sipped with the natural flavor of agave.

“OTACA is also different because of our team,” Arceta said, “from the people who work in our tequila field, to our tequila Joel Garcia, to the people who are at the forefront of distribution, and those These ideas were conceived with a dream and a passionate team of founders. Our team is passionate about sharing what tequila really is.”

Part of this expression of ideas is to create connections between brands and consumers through technology. The company wants its products to come in smart packaging to help customers understand the difference between the company and its products. Even before launching the OTACA brand, Arceta said, "We've been in the luxury industry for a long time, and we know how important it is to make consumers feel unique. The digital experience associated with NFC smart wine bottles has increased to a certain extent. The sophistication and exclusivity of our product elevates our product and captures the attention of many.”

OTACA started working with Identiv in recent months. The goal of the partnership is to help customers understand where products come from, how to enjoy them and where to buy them, Arceta said. Additionally, smart wine bottles are designed to provide some level of authentication, as each bottle is uniquely identified, and its history and identification are stored as immutable records in blockchain software.

The solution is currently being used in the company's first version: Plata, which utilizes an Identiv tag with a built-in NXP NTAG 210u NFC chip. The top half of the bottle itself is covered with black clay and the bottom half is clear glass, so consumers can see when the tequila is finished. The printed NFC tags have a round shape and are embedded in the square top of each tequila bottle. The label stores a unique ID number for that bottle, and every time the label is read, its history is updated to reflect that status in cloud computing software as well as on the blockchain.

Transparency and authenticity solutions provider SUKU, a blockchain platform for managing consumer engagement. “The decentralized, distributed nature of blockchain processing ensures security, transparency, reliability and authenticity,” said Amir Khoshniyati, general manager and vice president of transponder operations at Identiv, through In this way, NFC tags combined with blockchain technology enhance the credibility of the tequila supply chain.

Each NFC tag ID number uniquely identifies a specific bottle of tequila. The company explained that the bottle is filled, shipped and received by the retailer, and as long as the user is authorized to read the bottle label and confirm the authenticity of the bottle, as well as view its movement history.

Initially, though, OTACA's goal was to provide consumer engagement and certification for those who would be buying tequila.

Often, customers scan the labels of wine bottles at the store to learn about the product’s mission and storyline, including the journey from plant to wine, and the history of the company and its founders. Any NFC-enabled smartphone can interact with the tag. Once the phone reads the tag's unique ID, it opens up cloud-based software that provides customers with what they need to ensure the authenticity of the product and understand its context.

Once a customer returns home from a tequila purchase, the bottle label can be used for a variety of purposes. Users can tap the tabs with their mobile phones to access information about new brands or new products that are being released. When it's time to reorder, they can click the tab again and follow the prompts to buy a new wine. The technology also enables OTACA to implement a loyalty program, with the software providing analytics that indicate where alcohol is purchased and when.

Anthony and his wife Nicole Arceta taste tequila.

The tag chip has a counter solution built into it, so the system can track the number of engagements, while the blockchain verifies each engagement. This use case for NFC, and the application challenges it presents, is unique in several ways, Hoshiniati said. "We had to deal with changes in temperature and humidity due to cooling," as the bottles are usually stored in the refrigerator. Identiv chose a relatively large antenna as part of its encapsulation solution and provided integration to ensure buffering between the label and the liquid. He noted that it chose NXP chips for its base memory and high-performance chips.

The antenna is designed to accommodate the square shape of the cap while being large enough to read the label relatively easily with a cell phone within a few millimeters. Hoshiniati claims that tags can be reliably interrogated from any angle and can provide a predictable response even if the user does not understand NFC.

"They wanted a digital product from the start," Hoshiniati said when OTACA contacted Identiv. OTACA was the first tequila company to embed NFC technology directly into its packaging, he said, while Not a single-use label on the outside of the bottle. "We brought in the SUKU team to run the platform with analytics and blockchain certification."

When an individual reads a tag in a warehouse or store, the supply chain is able to gain access to information, which could also provide companies with an important set of data, Hoshiniati noted. Historically, in the CPG (consumer product) world, there have been many challenges in the grey market. So by looking at data about product journeys, companies can ensure their products are on the right store shelves. He said the tequilas have a suggested price of $74.95 at major chain stores and a retail price of $89. "At this price point, it's guaranteed that the product is where it's supposed to be."

In the end, Arceta said: "We believe that NFC tags will enable our products to be shared between customers and their friends through tag scanning, giving us the upper hand in marketing and, in a word, reducing customer acquisition costs. "The company has more vision for the future. He explained that blockchain adds value to product certification, “as we move to a more digitally oriented market, this could even allow OTACA to release a limited edition NTF with our co-founder Nicole Arceta ( non-fungible tokens) open doors.” His wife, Nicole Accetta, is an artist who paints luxury watches and other timepieces.

"We all know that once it's integrated into the blockchain, it can't be tampered with," said Anthony Arceta. "It's really a great opportunity to combine the tequila industry with art collectors in some great special edition bottles," such as in connection with Nicole Arsetta's artwork.

After years of behind-the-scenes work, OTACA's tequila opens to the public in October 2021. It's primarily sold in California, but the company has partnerships with liquor stores that allow direct-to-consumer online sales across the United States.

Nicole Arsetta in her art gallery