The first UK barcode scan took place 40 years ago today on the 2nd October 1979, at Keymarkets in Spalding, Lincolnshire.
Often taken for granted in everyday life, the barcode is on every commercial product in the UK and has a profound impact on the NHS, retail landscapes, food industries and the economy.
Andrew Osborne witnessed the inaugural barcode scanning, which was of a box of Melrose teabags.
He has worked in various senior positions at GS1 UK, an independent, non-profit organisation whose barcode standards have provided a common foundation for business since the first barcode was scanned.
American Norman Joseph Woodland initially invented the barcode, which was patented in the US in 1951.
Mr Osborne told Sync NI the reason it wasn’t used straight away was because “lasers are needed to read barcodes and those weren’t around. It wasn’t until the 60s that lasers became more widely available.
“In retail, barcode scanning started in the US in 1974. By the time it came to Europe, the technology was already proven. It wasn’t about barcoding but instead having a standard for numbers that represent the barcodes that sit on products.”
When asked if they knew the extent the creation of the barcode would have upon the wider world, Mr Osborne said: “We knew it would take off in retail. Back in the 70s we (GS1 UK) had a membership of big supermarkets and stores.
"Companies such as Boots, Woolworths and WHS Smith were all founder members of GS1 UK so the commitment was already there, but we didn’t foresee its impact in warehousing and manufacturing. We suspected it might have a replication in healthcare. Although we of course had no ideas phones with cameras would ever be invented!”
Andrew Osborne received the first ever GS1 UK lifetime achievement award.
Healthcare
Within hospitals, barcodes uniquely identify every person, product and place – helping to enhance patient safety, reduce unwarranted clinical variation and improve operational efficiencies.
This helps save thousands of lives and also saves the NHS a projected £1bn over seven years, according to GS1 UK.
Barcodes are used to help manage health records and identify medications, determining whether products are safe to use and still in date. This makes processes much more efficient and frees up precious time for doctors and nurses.
Theatre procedures are now scanned to record important data and reduce human error, and every baby born in a UK hospital can be identified through the application of an NHS number using GS1 standards.
Food industry
New barcoding technology is under development which will enable consumers to scan their products to find out exactly what ingredients it contains and where they came from, meaning that a humble barcode could potentially prevent allergy deaths and reduce the need for product recalls.
Barcodes could also be essential to future recycling schemes in the UK. Customers will receive money back on plastic, aluminium and glass receptacles returned to reverse-vending machines, all tracked by barcode.
Retail landscape
Barcodes are used by every key retailer and brand in the world, allowing them to uniquely identify all products so that they can easily be tracked through supply chains. Barcodes are scanned more than 70,000 times around the world every second.
They have also come a long way and don’t just apply to physical supermarkets anymore either, enabling digital marketplaces to be successful.
For example, Amazon, eBay and Google Shopping require sellers to use barcode numbers on all of their listings to authenticate products and make sure that shoppers can find, compare and buy products that they trust quickly and easily. In turn, this has helped small businesses excel online, making it easier to trade throughout the UK and expand internationally.
Barcoding tech has also come a long way, in the form of QR codes, which are matrix barcodes initially designed in 1994 for the Japanese automotive industry. They are now used by businesses and marketers worldwide as they can be instantly read using a smartphone camera.
When asked whether he thought barcodes would continue to thrive amongst the world’s emerging technologies, Mr Osborne said: “15 to 20 years ago people said the barcode would be replaced by radio frequency identification tags, which have much more powerful technology than barcodes.
"However barcodes are much cheaper, so delivering benefits in terms of costs, barcodes will win that battle and last a long time into the future. There is always room for more tech but I don’t think barcodes will go away just yet.”
Forty years ago, a barcode was just a single scan on a single product. Today it’s much, much more.
