They are everywhere. On just about anything you buy, anywhere, you will find a UPC. A Universal Product Code.
We didn’t always have them, though kids today would never know that fact. I can remember going to the Liberal’s Grocery Store in Forest Park Plaza as a kid. The cashier had a long list of items along with their prices folded under her countertop, as well as a more concise version taped on her machine. Mostly, the prices came right out of her memory, to her fingertips, to the keys of the cash register. But every once in a while, she’d look at us and say, “Do you know how much this is?” Rarely did Mom or I know. Then, next came my favorite part of going grocery shopping. The cashier would look at me quite seriously and ask:
“Do you remember where you got this?”
I would nod.
“Okay, honey. Can you go run to that aisle real fast and see how much it is?”
I would turn around, sharp on my heels, and sprint like a little mad woman through the store. Nothing made me happier than to be encouraged to run like crazy indoors.
But all of that changed.
And it sure doesn’t happen anymore, sending the kid on a price check. No. Not unless the sticky side of the UPC wears off and falls on the floor somewhere. These days, every product has a code, and it gets swiped by the omniscient eye before going into our grocery bags.
It all happened years ago, on this date, June 26, 1974. And not too far from where I am standing right now. The first Universal Product code was scanned to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.
Here in the United States and Canada, we use UPC codes, which have 12 digits. All of the rest of the world uses EAN codes, which have 13 digits. EAN stands for European Article Number, in case you are buying a Coca-Cola in Budapest.
Truly, it is a pretty brilliant idea. It takes the guesswork out of pricing, and all the information about the trade product is contained right there in that little sequence of numbers. From coconuts to crew socks. From pliers to potatoes.
It was Juicyfruit, by the way. That first pack of Wrigley’s gum that was scanned. Juicyfruit.
The road to get to the UPC code started mostly with Wallace Flint. He proposed an automated checkout system in 1932 using punched cards.
Then, Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland developed a bull’s-eye-style code and applied for the patent in 1949. This was the one that put the technology into place.
People kept tweaking it over the years, but it was sporadic. Then, in 1973, a group of trade associations from the grocery industry formed the Uniform Product Code Council (UPCC). I don’t know if they got to wear hats or not. Like the Shriners or the Moose Lodges. But if I had been on the Uniform Product Code Council, I would have demanded hats. Or capes.
Anyway. They put together all sorts of alternative proposals for symbol representations before coming up with what we know today as the UPC. And then, of course, came Troy, Ohio, in 1974. We’ve been beeping and laser-lighting ever since.
Every so often, you may spot me at the grocery running through the aisles, only to come to a skidding halt at the bread area to get a price check on English Muffins. No one really needs the price check, but I do it to keep my skills intact. In case there is ever a global power outage.
Lace ‘em up, Krony. “And she’s OFF.”
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“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
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“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
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“It’s still magic even if you know how it’s done.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
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