Happy Barcode Day! Marking 51 years of the striped superstar
Today! June 26 marks the 51st birthday of the barcode - the unsung hero of retail, logistics, healthcare, and beyond.
Yep, those little black and white stripes that quietly live on cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, honey jars and just about everything you’ve ever bought are officially middle-aged. And frankly, they’ve never looked better.
But where did this pixelated superstar begin its life story?
A quick scan through history
It all started on June 26, 1974, when a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum became the first product ever scanned at a checkout in an Ohio supermarket. The humble barcode beep signalled the start of a revolution in how business now tracks, sell, move and manages stuff across the globe.
The barcode was originally devised in the 1940s by two students who wanted a better way to speed up grocery store checkouts (shoutout to Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver!). By the 1970s, the barcode had evolved into the UPC (Universal Product Code) - the very system that powers global commerce today.
The UK’s first barcode scan happened in a Lincolnshire supermarket.
While barcodes were invented in the 1940’s it wasn’t until 3 April 1973 that the retail world reached an international agreement to adopt the now-iconic black lines as a standard for product identification.
But the UK took a little longer to catch up and it was on 2 October 1979 that the very first barcode was scanned in a British shop at Key Markets in Spalding, Lincolnshire. And the first item to be scanned? A box of teabags!
How Barcode Brilliant are you?
To mark Barcode Day 2025, we’ve created a fun quiz to test your know barcode knowhow and find out how just how Barcode brilliant you are?
If you know your GTIN from your QR Code or just want to see if your barcode knowledge is up to scratch, then it’s time to test your skills in our Ultimate Barcode Warehouse Geek Quiz!
