A member and accredited standards developer of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), GS1 US has recently celebrated the 35th anniversary of the Universal Product Code (UPC) at the annual U Connect 09 conference in Orlando.

 

Developed and administered by GS1 US, the UPC consists of a row of 59 machine-readable black and white bars and 12 human-readable digits. Every code incorporates three elements: the brand owner’s GS1 company prefix, the specific item’s reference number, and a check digit, which is calculated by the combination of the preceding numbers.

 

Introduced to help supermarkets speed up the checkout process, UPC's extensive use has brought cost savings and productivity gains for shoppers, retailers and manufacturers alike.

 

GS1 has recently developed GS1 DataBar, a more advanced bar code that can be adapted to fit a smaller label and to carry additional product information.