Soon the end of the line for barcodes after 50 years

 

Barcodes are set to disappear in favor of modern QR codes. After more than 50 years of ubiquity, the organization that oversees the world's barcodes is preparing to consign them to the bargain bin of history.

GS1, an international non-profit that maintains the global standard for barcodes, says they will be replaced by a new square version capable of storing much more information about products. Anne Godfrey, chief executive of GS1 UK, said almost half of British retailers have already updated their tills to accommodate the new codes. 'This has been in the works for some time, but Covid really accelerated it,' she said. 'During the pandemic, everyone got used to pointing their phones at QR codes in pubs and restaurants to access the menu.'

'Increasingly, QR codes that bring up bits of information are already appearing on the front of many products. Very soon we will say goodbye to the old-fashioned barcode and every product will just have one QR code that holds all the information you need.' Traditional barcodes can only hold seven pieces of very basic information — a product's name, manufacturer, type, size, weight, colour and, most importantly, its price.

They have become so crucial to the daily running of most supermarkets that it has become impossible to purchase a product unless it has a barcode on it. When they are scanned at the till, the number on the barcode is matched to an enormous database of products to ensure customers are charged correctly. The new QR codes contain much more information about products, such as their ingredients, any allergens they contain and even recipe suggestions, that can be accessed by consumers via their smartphones.

Mrs Godrey said: 'The old barcodes do what they say on the tin — they go beep, tell you the price and get you out of the store. But today's consumers want much more information about the products they buy. The next generation of barcodes will give greater power to the consumer. Retailers will have to upgrade or get left behind.' Barcodes were invented by US science graduates Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in the late 1940s, but didn't appear in shops until decades later.

The first barcoded product ever scanned was a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum at a supermarket in Ohio in 1974. They arrived in the UK in 1979, first used on a box of teabags at a shop in Spalding, Lincolnshire. Since then, GS1 has registered barcodes for more than 200million products around the world.

Though they are basic by today's standards, no two barcodes are the same. The lines on a barcode could be rearranged to register up to ten trillion different products. A study commissioned by GS1 found that 96 per cent of leading UK retail executives expect to see another retail technology transformation.

It also found that 46 per cent of retailers have already upgraded their checkout technology to accommodate QR codes, and another 52 per cent will do so over the coming year. GS1's new codes are currently being tested in 48 countries, including at Morrisons supermarkets in the UK. Many leading brands including PepsiCo, Proctor & Gamble, L'Oreal, Amazon and US grocery giant Walmart are already on board.

A full international roll-out of the new QR codes is expected to be complete by 2027. Mrs Godfrey said: 'The invention of the barcode is one of the great, untold stories in the history of our modern world. It is more frequently used than Google. We won't celebrate the death of the humble barcode, but it is time to say a long goodbye to it.'