50 years since the first barcode was scanned in a supermarket on June 26, 1974

When was the first bar code used in a supermarket? What was the first product to have a barcode?

On June 26, 1974, a product was first sold by scanning a barcode from a package with a barcode scanner at the Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, USA. The barcode was decoded at 8:01 am.

What was the first product ever sold using a barcode scanner (the first product to have a barcode)?

The first product to be read using a UPC barcode was a package of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The cost of chewing gum was 67 cents. This chewing gum is now on display at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, USA.

Interesting: The rest of the story is that the price of the gum was 69 cents, but the cash register, after scanning, gave a price of 67 cents. One can only imagine how the technicians and management of the store who were watching the event felt when it happened. Fortunately, they soon realized that "Marsh" always gave a discount of 2 cents on this product and the POS system gave the correct prices. Thus, the first scan was successful! Clyde Dawson, who asked for his Wrigley gum to be scanned, wasn't actually a customer. He was an employee of Marsh Supermarket.

Before the opening, especially on the last night, the employees spent a long time applying labels with barcodes to products that did not have codes on the packaging, because previously there was no such procedure as GS1 (formerly EAN) organizations, where you can get a unique barcode of the product . We wrote about how to generate/get a barcode for a product in another article.

The first barcode scanner used to scan goods in a supermarket.

The Marsh supermarket was chosen to test cash register technologies from various corporations, including a joint retail system from National Cash Register Corporation (NCR), which had a manufacturing facility nearby, and Spectra-Physics. NCR provided the prototype of the modern POS system, the NCR Model 255 computerized cash register, while Spectra-Physics produced the scanner. In 2024, the company Spectra-Physics is called Datalogic Scanning.

This Spectra-Physics scanner was called model A and this class of readers was originally called a price scanner. A pack of Wrigley chewing gum was the first purchase made with scanners that could read the new Uniform Product Code (UPC or barcode). A helium-neon laser mounted in the device projected a beam onto a rotating mirror and then projected it through a glass plate on the top surface. The light was reflected from the barcode on the package and detected by a diode. NCR's computerized cash register matched the signal from the scanner with information in a stored database to determine which product was being scanned.

Only two of these original Spectra-Physics Model-A scanners are known to exist. One at the Datalogic headquarters in Eugene, Oregon, USA and the other at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, USA.

The introduction of scanners marked the beginning of a new era of automation of purchases in supermarkets. Since the first pack of chewing gum, black-and-white barcodes, now well-known around the world, help track sales of billions of products.

The history of the introduction of the first UPC barcode in retail

We mentioned in the article about the history of the invention of the barcode when the first barcode was invented, namely that the first barcode was patented in 1952. But it took another two decades for scientists to invent new scanning technologies and new barcode symbols.

For scanning, complex systems were first implemented with 500-watt light bulbs, which were complicated and wasteful because of the heat they produced. Bar codes could only be read with them in one direction. Later, helium-neon lasers were used to illuminate barcodes. Such lasers could be directed using motorized moving mirrors that allowed bar codes to be quickly scanned at different angles. This was a significant improvement in speed, accuracy and reliability. This allowed the scanner to read partially damaged labels as the moving laser scanned undamaged areas.

A combination of market demand and technological advances led grocery industry executives to agree in 1970 that they needed a barcode that could be scanned by retailers, manufacturers and suppliers. They formed a special committee on a single product code and asked for proposals.

When did UPC codes start? The history of the creation of the UPC barcode

Among others, George Laurer and his team at IBM presented a code that included 30 black and 29 blank vertical lines that did not smear. It could be laser scanned in all directions and was small enough to fit on most products. Using line width and spacing, the symbol conveyed information in 95 bits of data using a binary code. The prototype scanning system that the IBM team developed to present their barcode influenced the symbol selection committee and later helped convince them of its practicality.

Also, on April 1, 1973, the UPC (Universal Product Code) barcode was officially patented, with a few minor changes to George Laurer's original design.

IBM was one of the first vendors to propose a complete point-of-sale automation kit, now called a POS system. IBM 3660 Supermarket System included a POS terminal, a barcode scanner, and a merchant terminal that connected to a server.

Challenges in the implementation of the UPC barcode in retail trade

The introduction of bar coding was not without its initial skeptics.

• Buyers questioned the accuracy of prices
• Unions were concerned that cars were putting people out of work.
• Retailers and manufacturers were reluctant to invest in labels for products that did not have a barcode on the package.
• People were afraid that "big brother" would follow them with the help of barcodes.

Interesting fact: The introduction of the barcode was met with criticism and skepticism from conspiracy theorists who saw barcodes as an intrusive surveillance technology, as well as from some Christians who were guided by the book "The New Money System 666" by Mary Stuart Relf who stated, that the codes hide the number 666, which represents the "Number of the Beast". TV host Phil Donahue called barcodes "a corporate conspiracy against consumers."

However, retailers have forced manufacturers and suppliers to start using barcodes. And the advantages over time became obvious. Retailers were able to keep track of inventory, and checkout lines moved much faster.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrigley_Company

https://www.si.edu/object/wrigleys-juicy-fruit-chewing-gum:nmah_1345835

https://www.ibm.com/history/point-of-sale

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_892778

https://www.ibm.com/history/upc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Stewart_Relfe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCR_Voyix

https://www.datalogic.com/upload/pdf/articoli/conception-of-an-industry.pdf.pdf