When you pass a pack of Tesco own-brand steaks or lemons in a UK store today, you’ll notice something small but truly unique on the packaging: a QR code that either sits next to or is starting to replace the recognizable parallel lines of the barcode, which has been a part of the grocery shopping scene since before the majority of today’s consumers were born. When you scan it with a phone, the code provides storage tips, recipe suggestions, and details about the product’s origin rather than just verifying the price. In isolation, it’s a small interaction—a few seconds, a piece of content, nothing that significantly alters the lemons-buying experience. However, it’s more intriguing than it appears when considered as a sign of the future direction of the retail sector as a whole.
In 2025, Tesco started testing QR codes on some of its own-brand fresh produce and meat products, such as lemons, limes, steaks, and sausages. Since then, the trial has been expanded. The business is currently regarded as the first significant UK supermarket to make significant progress toward doing away with the conventional barcode, which has been a standard feature of retail checkout systems for fifty years. In June 1974, a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, had the barcode scanned for the first time. Five years later, it made its debut in the UK on a box of teabags at a store in Spalding, Lincolnshire. The parallel lines have consistently provided checkout scanners with the price and a few other details for fifty years. About all they can do is that. The product name, manufacturer, type, size, weight, color, and price are the only seven pieces of information that can be stored in a conventional barcode.
| Initiative | Tesco is trialling QR codes on own-brand fresh produce and meat products as part of a wider industry shift away from traditional barcodes. Tesco is the first major UK supermarket to begin this transition at scale |
| Barcode vs QR Code | Traditional barcode: 50 years old, holds only 7 data points (product name, manufacturer, type, size, weight, colour, price). Must be scanned at a specific angle. QR code: holds significantly more information, including product origin, allergen details, recipe content, and storage guidance. Scannable from any angle using a smartphone |
| Industry Adoption | GS1 UK (international non-profit maintaining global barcode standards): almost half of British retailers have already updated checkouts to handle QR codes. Other major brands adopting 2D barcodes: Unilever, Procter & Gamble, L’Oréal. GS1 CEO Anne Godfrey: “Very soon we will say goodbye to the old-fashioned barcode.” |
| Barcode History | Invented in the late 1940s by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver. First scanned in store: June 26, 1974 — a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio. Arrived in the UK in 1979, first used on a box of teabags at a shop in Spalding, Lincolnshire |
| Industry Assessment | Lee Metters, business development director at Domino Printing Sciences: “I think it will end up being as significant as the original introduction of the barcode.” GS1 forecasts QR codes will become the norm across retail within the next few years |
| Reference | GS1 UK — Sunrise 2027: The Transition to 2D Barcodes (gs1uk.org) ↗ |
The black-and-white square grids known as QR codes, which proliferated on menus and payment screens during the pandemic, have a much larger capacity. origin of the product. details about allergens. Storage guidelines. ideas for recipes. carbon footprint information, if a business decides to include it. Compared to barcodes that must pass within a certain range of a particular scanner, they can be scanned by a smartphone camera from any angle, which is a minor but significant ergonomic improvement. “Very soon we will say goodbye to the old-fashioned barcode and every product will just have one QR code that holds all the information you need,” stated Anne Godfrey, chief executive of GS1 UK, the international non-profit that upholds the global barcode standard. Nearly half of British retailers have already upgraded their checkout systems to support QR codes, according to Godfrey. It’s a startling number. It implies that the shift is an ongoing infrastructure project that is well underway rather than a far-off goal.
The names responsible for the change are not insignificant. L’Oréal, Unilever, and Procter & Gamble have all implemented 2D barcodes throughout their product lines. These multinational consumer goods corporations oversee thousands of SKUs in dozens of markets; their decision to switch to QR codes at their scale is a commitment rather than an experiment. Retailers who scan these products must comply with the packaging changes made by manufacturers of this magnitude. According to GS1’s data, UK retailers are already investing in modern checkout hardware, which is at least partially a reaction to supply-side pressure.
“I think it will end up being as significant as the original introduction of the barcode,” said Lee Metters, business development director at Domino Printing Sciences, a company that manufactures coding and marking equipment used in packaging lines across industries. That’s a big claim, and someone in the printing equipment industry might be making a somewhat self-serving comparison. However, the structural justification for it is fairly sound. The original barcode revolutionized retail by enabling automated checkout, enabling large-scale inventory management, and restructuring the price-product relationship in ways that took years to fully understand. The relationship between a customer and the product they are purchasing is altered in a different but similar way when a QR code connects a tangible item to a live stream of information.
Even though the infrastructure supporting it is already substantial, there’s a sense that what’s being tested on Tesco lemons and limes at the moment is truly early-stage. The consumer-facing applications that GS1 and Tesco are showcasing, such as storage advice when scanning fresh produce or recipe inspiration when scanning a steak, are the friendly, approachable version of a capability that has a lot more potential. information about allergens that is updated when a product’s formulation is modified. Remember the alerts that show up when you scan an item from a batch that is impacted. Provenance chains that follow a piece of fish or a bunch of grapes through several stages of the supply chain. None of those uses is fantastical; rather, they are logical extensions of the technical capabilities of QR codes.
Naturally, the question that is frequently ignored is whether or not customers will actually interact with the information. The majority of consumers scan their purchases at the register without paying much attention to anything other than the total. Pointing a phone at the QR code determines its value. As the codes become commonplace, it’s unclear if that habit will develop naturally or if prompting and engagement campaigns—which most retailers haven’t yet tried—are necessary. For the time being, technology is developing regardless of whether behavior has caught up. The barcode was remarkably stable over the course of fifty years. That longevity will have to be earned by whatever takes its place. When you pass a pack of Tesco own-brand steaks or lemons in a UK store today, you’ll notice something small but truly unique on the packaging: a QR code that either sits next to or is starting to replace the recognizable parallel lines of the barcode, which has been a part of the grocery shopping scene since before the majority of today’s consumers were born. When you scan it with a phone, the code provides storage tips, recipe suggestions, and details about the product’s origin rather than just verifying the price. In isolation, it’s a small interaction—a few seconds, a piece of content, nothing that significantly alters the lemons-buying experience. However, it’s more intriguing than it appears when considered as a sign of the future direction of the retail sector as a whole.
In 2025, Tesco started testing QR codes on some of its own-brand fresh produce and meat products, such as lemons, limes, steaks, and sausages. Since then, the trial has been expanded. The business is currently regarded as the first significant UK supermarket to make significant progress toward doing away with the conventional barcode, which has been a standard feature of retail checkout systems for fifty years. In June 1974, a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, had the barcode scanned for the first time. Five years later, it made its debut in the UK on a box of teabags at a store in Spalding, Lincolnshire. The parallel lines have consistently provided checkout scanners with the price and a few other details for fifty years. About all they can do is that. The product name, manufacturer, type, size, weight, color, and price are the only seven pieces of information that can be stored in a conventional barcode.
The black-and-white square grids known as QR codes, which proliferated on menus and payment screens during the pandemic, have a much larger capacity. origin of the product. details about allergens. Storage guidelines. ideas for recipes. carbon footprint information, if a business decides to include it. Compared to barcodes that must pass within a certain range of a particular scanner, they can be scanned by a smartphone camera from any angle, which is a minor but significant ergonomic improvement. “Very soon we will say goodbye to the old-fashioned barcode and every product will just have one QR code that holds all the information you need,” stated Anne Godfrey, chief executive of GS1 UK, the international non-profit that upholds the global barcode standard. Nearly half of British retailers have already upgraded their checkout systems to support QR codes, according to Godfrey. It’s a startling number. It implies that the shift is an ongoing infrastructure project that is well underway rather than a far-off goal.
The names responsible for the change are not insignificant. L’Oréal, Unilever, and Procter & Gamble have all implemented 2D barcodes throughout their product lines. These multinational consumer goods corporations oversee thousands of SKUs in dozens of markets; their decision to switch to QR codes at their scale is a commitment rather than an experiment. Retailers who scan these products must comply with the packaging changes made by manufacturers of this magnitude. According to GS1’s data, UK retailers are already investing in modern checkout hardware, which is at least partially a reaction to supply-side pressure.
“I think it will end up being as significant as the original introduction of the barcode,” said Lee Metters, business development director at Domino Printing Sciences, a company that manufactures coding and marking equipment used in packaging lines across industries. That’s a big claim, and someone in the printing equipment industry might be making a somewhat self-serving comparison. However, the structural justification for it is fairly sound. The original barcode revolutionized retail by enabling automated checkout, enabling large-scale inventory management, and restructuring the price-product relationship in ways that took years to fully understand. The relationship between a customer and the product they are purchasing is altered in a different but similar way when a QR code connects a tangible item to a live stream of information.
Even though the infrastructure supporting it is already substantial, there’s a sense that what’s being tested on Tesco lemons and limes at the moment is truly early-stage. The consumer-facing applications that GS1 and Tesco are showcasing, such as storage advice when scanning fresh produce or recipe inspiration when scanning a steak, are the friendly, approachable version of a capability that has a lot more potential. information about allergens that is updated when a product’s formulation is modified. Remember the alerts that show up when you scan an item from a batch that is impacted. Provenance chains that follow a piece of fish or a bunch of grapes through several stages of the supply chain. None of those uses is fantastical; rather, they are logical extensions of the technical capabilities of QR codes.
Naturally, the question that is frequently ignored is whether or not customers will actually interact with the information. The majority of consumers scan their purchases at the register without paying much attention to anything other than the total. Pointing a phone at the QR code determines its value. As the codes become commonplace, it’s unclear if that habit will develop naturally or if prompting and engagement campaigns—which most retailers haven’t yet tried—are necessary. For the time being, technology is developing regardless of whether behavior has caught up. The barcode was remarkably stable over the course of fifty years. That longevity will have to be earned by whatever takes its place.
