The first product ever scanned with a barcode on June 26, 1974, was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio
When did the barcode first appear?
The barcode was first invented in 1948 by Norman J. Woodland and Bernard Silver at Drexel University
Those two grad students were wrestling with supermarket checkout headaches when they sketched out that now-famous bullseye pattern on a sandy beach. Their patent landed in 1952, though early stores weren’t exactly lining up to install the clunky readers. The whole thing was basically Morse code turned sideways—dots and dashes swapped for fat and thin stripes. Printing tech back then was about as reliable as a chocolate teapot, and costs were through the roof, so progress crawled along for decades.
Which Ohio product made history with the very first scan?
On June 26, 1974, a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum became the first product ever scanned
Clerk Sharon Buchanan tapped that pack across the scanner at 8:01 a.m. in a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The store’s location wasn’t random—Troy sits in a state with no sales tax, which kept the math simple for the cameras and reporters watching. That unassuming pack of gum didn’t just ring up; it rang in the age of automated checkout.
Which company got the barcode ball rolling?
The Wrigley Company holds the honor of being first—their gum was the one scanned in Troy, Ohio
Photographic Sciences Corporation built the first laser scanner specifically for the test. Meanwhile, Wrigley teamed up with IBM to design the actual UPC symbol printed on the packaging. Back in 1974, company execs saw the barcode as a way to speed up checkout lines and keep better tabs on inventory. Honestly, this was the best retail tech launch since the shopping cart.
What item actually crossed the scanner first?
A 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum was the first item ever scanned on June 26, 1974
Sharon Buchanan, the Marsh clerk, performed the historic scan in front of a crowd of reporters and industry bigwigs. That same pack now sits in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History—basically the barcode equivalent of the Wright brothers’ plane. The successful scan proved the system worked, and the rest is retail history.
What’s actually stored inside a barcode?
A UPC barcode holds a 12-digit Global Trade Item Number (GTIN-12) that identifies maker, product line, and item type
Surprise—no price, weight, or “best by” date lives in those stripes. Instead, retailers link the number to their own databases where prices, promotions, and inventory details live. Some fancier codes, like GS1 DataBar, can squeeze in serial numbers or batch info. The beauty of the system is its simplicity: quick scans, low errors, and no fancy math required.
How much did gum cost back in 1970?
A standard five-stick pack cost just five cents in 1970
By ’72 the pack grew to seven sticks, but the price doubled to ten cents. Inflation kept pushing, and by ’74 you’d hand over fifteen cents for the same pack. Those prices come straight from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI data. Chewing gum wasn’t exactly immune to the inflation spiral of the 1970s.
When did grocery stores start scanning?
Grocery scanning kicked off on June 26, 1974 at that Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio
Ten Midwest stores joined the first test run. The system ran on Symbol Technologies lasers and IBM’s UPC specs. On day one they logged 2,000 scans and proved the tech could handle real-world checkout chaos. Within five years, over 100,000 stores worldwide had scanners humming at the registers.
Who built the very first scanner?
Russell A. Kirsch led the team that built the first image scanner in 1957 at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards
His drum scanner turned a photo into a 176×176 pixel digital image—tiny by today’s standards, but revolutionary at the time. The very first digital image? A snapshot of Kirsch’s baby son. That breakthrough jump-started computer graphics and document imaging. Later, Kirsch earned the National Medal of Technology for his work.
How much data can a barcode really hold?
Linear codes like UPC cram in 12 digits, while 2D codes like QR can store up to 7,089 characters
UPC-A splits those 12 digits: six for the manufacturer, five for the product, and one check digit. On the other hand, Data Matrix codes can tuck in URLs, product specs, or even tiny images. The ceiling depends on barcode type, size, and error-correction settings. Bigger capacity means bigger labels and pricier scanners.
Who really owns a barcode?
Companies license barcode numbers from GS1—they don’t outright own them
GS1 hands out unique prefixes and product codes. Membership must be renewed every year to keep the code active. The rules also forbid selling or transferring barcodes to unrelated products. GS1 keeps a tight database to block duplicates and invalid codes from sneaking into stores.
What’s the barcode format anyway?
UPC-A uses a 12-digit layout with guard bars and a check digit calculated by a modulo-10 formula
The first six digits ID the manufacturer, the next five ID the product, and the last digit is a checksum. Outside North America, EAN-13 extends this to 13 digits. Scanners look for quiet zones, start/stop bars, and digit patterns to decode everything accurately.
When did books finally get barcodes?
Bookstores started slapping UPC barcodes on books in the late 1970s once ISBNs were folded into UPC encoding
The Bookland EAN code, introduced in 1981, merged ISBN with UPC so general retailers could scan them. Libraries had been using Codabar for circulation before UPC took over. These days, most books carry a Bookland EAN-13 with the ISBN printed underneath.
Which product was the first to ring up with a barcode?
The first product rung up with a barcode was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum on June 26, 1974
That historic pack now lives in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Its UPC number was 96000 00010. The successful scan proved the system worked, and retailers didn’t look back.
Where do barcodes even come from?
Barcodes are generated through GS1 or a company’s internal barcode system
Companies request a GS1 company prefix, which becomes part of every product code. Internal software then assigns unique item numbers and renders the barcode image. That image can be printed right on packaging or slapped on as a label with a thermal or inkjet printer. Retailers download the barcode database to their point-of-sale systems so scanners can do their job.
Can a barcode tell you when something was purchased?
No standard UPC barcode stores purchase date or time information
All it does is ID the product. Retailers track the actual purchase date in their point-of-sale databases linked to that barcode. A few specialized codes, like GS1-128, can encode expiration or production dates, but stores have to set up extra decoding rules to use that data.
Edited and fact-checked by the FixAnswer editorial team.
