Barcodes may be seen on everything from store-bought products to billboards that give additional information. Since their introduction in the United Kingdom in 1979, barcode labels have evolved in tandem with technological advancements.
The food sector is one of the many industries that use barcodes, but why and how are they used? Is there any benefit to including barcodes on food packaging?
WHAT ARE BARCODES AND HOW ARE THEY Needed FOR FOOD PACKAGING?
The most essential feature of barcodes on food packaging is that they may aid in supply chain management when multiple food products are supplied.Barcode label printing online is ideal for keeping track of how many bananas, oranges, and melons are in the supply system and how many have been delivered for single fruits like bananas, oranges, and melons. Barcodes are ideal for tracking bulk items, as well as an inventory system and ensuring that each item is of the best quality.
Above all, barcodes are primarily employed to track every product in the distribution network. As a result, businesses must adhere to certain government laws and regulations to avoid waste and assist in improving product information for consumers.
IS THE FOOD INDUSTRY NOW BEING CHANGED BY BARCODING?
Yes, this is the straightforward answer to this question. With the world’s population now at a whopping 7.3 billion people, one of the world’s most pressing issues is the massive quantity of food waste that exists. The average person generates over 215 kg of food waste each year. This amounts to nearly 1.3 billion tonnes of waste every year, or almost one-third of all food produced.
One startup, on the other hand, intends to combat the food waste issue by putting barcodes on food packaging. An ean barcodes for healthy produce that includes best before and use by dates, according to GS1 UK, the UK’s leading industry facilitator, might reduce food waste.
Barcodes on food packaging are an excellent method to track, monitor, and guarantee that every product that enters the supply chain is of the highest quality. Barcoding your assets can help you keep track of how much stock is coming into your organization and ensure that you don’t lose any along the way.
We can source and implement the greatest asset tracking solutions at GSM Barcoding, ensuring that your business functions as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
BARCODING IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY: HISTORY
The Pennsylvania Railroad was the first to use barcodes in the transportation business. They required a mechanism to automatically identify train carriages, and their KarTrak system, which had blue and red stripes and six-digit identification, was the first widely recognized barcoding system.
However, barcodes, as we know them today, were initially developed for the grocery industry, where a system that reads product information automatically at the checkout was required.
A pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum was the world’s first item to have its Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode read at a supermarket checkout in Ohio in 1974. The Smithsonian Institution has this transaction’s receipt on display.
Most things in stores and supermarkets now have UPC barcodes pre-printed on them. They help track inventory, speed up check-out, and decrease stealing. They also enable retailers to provide special deals and discounts that are instantly applied at the checkout when the barcode is read.
Many grocery chains now enable consumers to use their mobile barcode scanner to speed up the shopping process, so check-outs aren’t even necessary in some cases. They scan while they shop, then pay and go, bypassing the check-out lines.
