Food - Drink
Why The World's First Scanned Barcode Was On A Pack Of Gum
By LISA CURRAN MATTE
When you think of ubiquitous life-changing inventions, a barcode scanner might not be at the top of your list, but since the 1980s, barcodes and their scanners have been saving customers time. In fact, the idea for barcodes and their scanners began in 1948, but it wasn’t until 1974 that a pack of Wrigley’s gum became the first item ever scanned.
The fact that Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum was the item to herald in the new technology wasn’t happenstance. The gum was chosen as a sign of appreciation to the Wrigley brand for helping develop the scannable barcodes, but more importantly, it was chosen to stymie any doubts by scanning an item that many believed would be too small to get a barcode on.
However, it turned out that the barcode itself was the easier half of the invention, and while the barcode was successfully fine-tuned and patented by 1952, the project stalled while the team searched for a way to scan the codes. It wasn’t until the invention of lasers in the 1960s, that a viable scanning system was created, leading to that momentous first scan in 1974.