Every item in your local grocery store bears a pattern of lines and spaces on its label. This is called a bar code or a UPC code (Universal Product Code). A UPC corresponds to a series of numbers and each item is assigned its own number. Grocery stores use this code as an accurate way to identify items and their price. Of course, a bar code would be worthless without a way to read it. This is done by an optical laser scanner. These scanners allow grocery checkers to check out customers without entering individual prices into a cash register. Today, we can even scan our own groceries. But, the technology for all this existed decades before it began to be used in grocery stores.
The first bar codes were developed by Norman Joseph Woodland of Drexel University, along with Bernard Silver in 1949. They applied for a patent, which was granted in 1952. The patent described the bar codes and how they could be read by a light-sensitive scanner. They specifically mentioned how useful this system would be in supermarkets, but it took many years before any grocery stores actually adopted such a system. Meanwhile, the American Association of Railroads tried and failed, to use a bar code and laser scanner system to identify train cars.
First Automated Checkout Used in a Grocery Store
The first automated supermarket scanner was developed for Kroger stores by RCA. The first one was installed at Kroger’s Kenwood Plaza store in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1967. This earlier iteration did not use today’s UPC codes. Instead, the scanner read stickers with patterns of concentric circles, placed on the products, called a bull’s-eye code, based on Woodland and Bernad’s original patent design. Although Woodland had first envisioned a pattern of lines and dots, it was the bull’s eye design they finally settled on.
Believe it or not, when the RCA team was searching for ideas for developing a new, more efficient, grocery check-out system, they came across an idea for the customer to place items into a shopping cart that would pass under a scanner that identified each item and printed a bill automatically. Certainly, the team would have found this idea ridiculous, but a similar system has been developed and used by Amazon at its flagship self-service grocery stores.
If every grocery store chain had to use its own system, it’s doubtful we would have seen universal adoption. In the early 70s, a council was formed to push for the universal system for coding grocery products to be used by the entire industry. The council was called, fittingly, the UGPCC or Uniform Grocery Product Code Council.
The first UPC code was developed by an IBM engineer named George J. Laurer. The codes consisted of a six-digit manufacturer’s code, a five-digit product code, and one digit used to check and validate the code. Later, a digit was added for country identification, which allowed Europe and Japan to begin using their own systems. Now, all grocery store products have a unique UPC code.
First UPC Codes with Automatic Scanners Used at a Grocery Store
The first time the new UPC codes were used, along with automated checkout scanners, was at a store in Troy, Ohio called Marsh Supermarket, at 8 a.m. on June 26, 1974. This is no happenstance since the checkout scanners and computers were installed (overnight) by National Cash Register, which was based in Ohio.
The first product to be swiped by the new machine was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. This item was ‘purchased’ by the first customer at the Marsh Supermarket to experience the automated checkout system, who was actually Clyde Dawson, who was head of research and development for Marsh Supermarket.
Of course, bar codes and automatic scanning have spread far beyond the grocery industry. 1Hendrickson, Kenneth E. The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History. Rowman Et Littlefield, 2015. 2Marshall, Gerald F., and Glenn E. Stutz. Handbook of Optical and Laser Scanning. CRC Press, 2018. 3Weightman, Gavin. “The History of the Bar Code.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 23 Sept. 2015, www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/history-bar-code-180956704/.
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