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Bar Code

Make your business processes faster and more accurate – over 20 sectors use GS1 Bar Code standards

A bar code represents numbers or letters in a machine-readable format that can be decoded, recorded and processed by a computer system when read by a bar code scanner. The data in the bar code can automatically identify their physical things like trade items (products & services), assets, logistic units, shipments, and physical locations and relationships, parties and locations at any point in the supply chain.

GS1 provides several types of barcodes that can be used for a variety of reasons:

The retail industry benefits from the use of bar codes to:

  • capture sales data for forecasting. Loyalty programmes and replenishment
  • automate pricing and remove the need to apply pricing labels
  • improve supply chain efficiency on outer cases and pallets

GS1 DataBar is a new bar code that is being introduced by GS1 for use in the retail sector. It is smaller or can encode more information such as expiry dates, batch numbers, prices, weights and more. Find out more about GS1 DataBar

The food services sector benefits from using bar codes to:

  • lower costs and increase efficiency by knowing exactly where assets are and where they have been
  • speed up and improve the way you do business with your suppliers
  • improve food and product safety by keeping a track of products in the supply chain and save money at the same time
  • improve data quality for a speedier, more efficient supply chain

Healthcare organisations benefit from using bar codes to help:

  • improve patient safety
  • reduce errors
  • save money through improved efficiency.
  • improve care and security of patients.
  • verify identity of patients.
  • tackle counterfeit drugs.

All trade items (products & services), assets, logistic units, shipments, and physical locations and relationships, parties and locations need an identification number. GS1 UK's bar code image generator will help you create your bar codes to GS1 standards. The type of bar code you need depends on what you need it for - consumer units, logistic units or traded units, for example.

Join GS1 UK

Read more about what you get when you become a member and how much it costs.

Ready to join GS1 UK - just complete the online application and start using your bar codes today.

Join GS1 UK

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GS1 UK is a company limited by guarantee and registered in England and Wales under company number 1256140. Registered office Staple Court, 11 Staple Inn Buildings, London, WC1V 7QH. VAT number GB287940215.