The First Barcode Scan
Next: June 26, 2027
It began with a pack of gum.
The story
Where it comes from
This Story marks the anniversary of 26 June 1974, when the first product marked with a Universal Product Code was scanned at a shop checkout. Just after 8am at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, the cashier Sharon Buchanan scanned a multi-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum for Clyde Dawson, Marsh's head of research. He chose the gum because nobody had been sure a bar code could be printed on something so small. The scanner, one of the first ten, read the stripes with a laser, and a computerised cash register looked up the price.
How it's celebrated
There is no formal observance, but the town of Troy celebrates the anniversary every few years, and in 2024 a historical marker went up at the site of the old store. One of the first ten scanners is in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. To mark the day, look at the stripes on the next thing you buy: a code like it is now printed on nearly every manufactured product.
Did you know
- The bar code's inventor, Joe Woodland, first drew the idea in sand with his fingers, and the design he patented with Bernard Silver looked like a bullseye.
- The night before the first scan, Marsh staff stuck bar codes on hundreds of items in the store.
- The QR code, a two-dimensional cousin of the bar code, was released in Japan in 1994 by a Denso team led by Masahiro Hara, who drew inspiration from the board game Go.
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