A shopping favorite celebrates its 50th

Are you pre barcode or post? It’s not age discrimination, it’s just that the ubiquitous barcode – a boon to shoppers – is celebrating 50 years of much-appreciated existence.

Historians claim this remarkable innovation that changed our shopping experience has a history of “triumphs, failures, surprises, and human dramas.” Sounds like the makings of an animated short-subject film but today we’ll just go with a few anniversary highlights.

Inspired by the Morse Code’s dots and dashes, Joe Woodland invented the barcode to simplify inventory taking and get shoppers through the checkout line faster. Can we get a collective round of applause?

And the first item to be scanned on April 3, 1973? All eyes were on the barcode of a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing for more than one reason at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. Wrigley’s also wanted to prove that even very small items could be scanned– and the company was right. 

In the 1980s, the barcode’s popularity took off when Kmart and Walmart pushed for universal adoption because of how the strange-looking sticker benefited their cataloguing and tracking. The first handheld fixed-beam laser scanner was patented in 1986, Woodland was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 1992 and barcodes appeared on airline boarding passes in 2005. Definitely worth celebrating!

ARTICLE: HISTORY OF THE BARCODE