They may not have been eager, and the technology may still have kinks, but almost all of Wal-Mart Stores' top 100 suppliers are participating in the giant retailer's first rollout of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in Texas, which began this month. And while payback for participation may be years ahead -- or even never come at all -- for many food companies, few if any can afford to ignore RFID. Not only is Wal-Mart testing RFID in the Dallas area, but rivals Target and Albertson's are piggybacking on the Wal-Mart effort by rolling out their own tests there. More broadly, the U.S. Dept. of Defense, European retailers Tesco and Metro and at least two more major U.S. retailers are preparing their own RFID rollouts, according to executives familiar with the matter.Wal-Mart says 98 of its top 100 suppliers nationally are meeting the January deadline to have RFID on cases and pallets destined for three north Texas distribution centers. Two are working out snags that will prevent them from meeting the deadline. But another 38 suppliers have volunteered to get in on the first wave of compliance.Wal-Mart clearly loves nothing more than an eager volunteer â€" especially when such consulting firms as A.T. Kearney Inc. and AMR Research and even the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA), an original backer of the RFID movement, contend return on investment will be hard to deliver.But to help dispel any doubts, Wal-Mart has held up as a shining example Beaver Street Fisheries, a Jacksonville, Fla., seafood distributor, which volunteered to join the initial Texas rollout two months early in November. Privately held Beaver Street doesn't disclose sales, but suffice to say it does not rank among Wal-Mart's top 100. Even so, Howard Stockdale, chief information officer of the company, said in a statement, "We believe RFID offers an opportunity to fine tune our processes, and we've made a decision to aggressively pursue this technology. Participating in Wal-Mart's initiative is part of this strategy.""Beaver Street provides a textbook example of how to approach this technology," says Carolyn Walton, vice president of Wal-Mart's Information Systems Division in charge of RFID implementation. "They got into the game early. They put together a team to see how RFID could benefit their own business. And they developed an implementation plan that was aggressive but achievable." Stockdale says RFID has led to a re-engineering process that will make the company, which imports seafood from 50 countries, more competitive.