Forget about all those numerous definitions - active, diagnostic, intelligent, smart, communicative, functional, enhancement - to describe smart packaging. Just stick to 'smart' and figure it's all one big continuum of functionality. In fact think of 'smart' as meaning clever, neat or 'wow' and you'll get the picture - so long as there's real useful functionality and not just gimmickry.

But one subdivision does make sense - according to who is the major beneficiary.

Here we have just two categories

1. A conventional package made smart by an RFID tag or label. The functionality is electronic and the major beneficiary is the supply chain. This is all about knowing where your things are (track & trace) - all very important.

2. A package made smart by functional attributes that add benefits to the consumers. These may be purely design elements, or else mechanical, chemical, electrical or electronically-driven functions that enhance the usability or effectiveness of the product in some way. The major beneficiary is the consumer. Examples might be time-temperature food quality labels, self-heating or self-cooling containers for beverages and foods, or milk cartons with electronic displays indicating use-by dates and information about the nutritional qualities and origin of the product in numerous languages.