{"id":77566,"date":"2023-04-03T15:45:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T13:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/packaging-journal.de\/?p=77566"},"modified":"2023-04-03T16:27:59","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T14:27:59","slug":"barcode-gs1-barcode-scanning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/packaging-journal.de\/en\/barcode-gs1-strichcode-scannen\/","title":{"rendered":"The barcode turns 50"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For 50 years, barcodes have made it easier to scan products at supermarket checkouts. Different industries use the code to quickly identify products.<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The barcode celebrates a milestone birthday on 3 April 2023. Its introduction 50 years ago has Retail revolutionised and thus opened up the age of digitalisation<\/strong>. A few years ago, the BBC described the barcode as \u201eone of the 50 most important things that have changed our global economy\u201c. With a simple scan, a product can be identified at the checkout and connected to the digital world<\/strong>. Queues in supermarkets became shorter and stock management simpler and more accurate.<\/p>

Today, the barcode can be found on over 1 billion products worldwide and its ubiquitous \u201ebeep\u201c can be heard more than 10 billion times a day at the checkout. Behind the barcode is a worldwide overlap-free GS1<\/a> Article number system for which GS1 Austria is responsible as part of the international GS1 network in Austria.\u00a0<\/p>

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The invention of the barcode goes back much further than its market launch: the American Norman Joseph Woodland - also known as the \u201efather of the barcode\u201c - had already invented the barcode for the first time. In 1949, he drew his first ideas in the sand on a beach in Florida and finally patented them in 1952.<\/strong> registered. It was not until around twenty years later, on 3 April 1973, that ten industry leaders from trade and industry in the USA agreed on the Use of a standardised symbol for the Universal Product Code (U.P.C.) to identify food products<\/strong>. They used Woodland's invention for this purpose: The barcode we know today was born.<\/p>

Another important milestone was the 1974 the first official scan of a barcode on a packet of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum<\/strong> in a supermarket in Ohio. Three years later - in 1977 - the European Article Numbering Association (EAN) was founded in Brussels by leading organisations from 12 European countries (including Austria). EAN Austria (now GS1 Austria), which was founded in Austria in the same year, played a leading role in all developments from the very beginning. Over the decades, for example, many new sectors and areas of application have been conquered, such as healthcare or construction<\/strong>.<\/p>