GS1 Datamatrix is what I see here locally (Switzerland) starting being used for fresh food like sandwiches which makes sense as it contains the sell by date. This allows them to quickly scan items and sort out what has expired or needs a discount because it's expiring soon.
Sadly food tracking apps still don't read these codes. They are vibe coding new features constantly but not working on adding what is actually important.
I'm glad to see this. Switching to a new standard barcode format that can hold more data and enable better tracking of physical consumer goods seems like the sort of thing that will have a large number of small benefits pervasively in the economy, one of the many small improvements of human technological civilization that in the aggregate results in a better world today than in the past.
I also like the aesthetics of QR codes better than traditional barcodes. They do kind of invoke the look of a Go board partway through a game, which is more visually interesting than the boring straight lines of the traditional barcode.
I am the creator of https://www.closient.com/ - a GS1 Digital Link Resolver (still building it, be gentle).
I have been deep into this space for a fair bit of time now. The real power is in Recalls and Return Fraud. There a ton of other nice things that this will empower of course. AMA - I will do my best to answer.
Not advertising - just trying to get the word out on 2D codes and RFID and what they provide consumers.
For those saying "Why not something else?" - it comes down to adoption - QR was just the more popular winner. While the register/till is where most of the scanning is happening the QR is just a normal URL and consumer can scan them.
At a fundamental level, if the website isn't the product, the product has been public-facing and/or created post-2025, and it's not coming from a multi-million funded tech business, I wouldn't dock points for a slopped website — let the team focus on maintaining and using skills related to the actual product, while still having a working website. Even if the visual and textual tone may be off-putting, a decent-looking slopped website is better than no website, I prefer being able to discover and interact with them at all than not.
Just don't bury the core concept of your product in marketing-slop on your website (this site is certainly pushing that limit for me).
As I understand it, The key bits of data are in the QR code, they are just encoded as a URL - a highly structured URL that point of sale systems can decode without visiting the URL.
Doing it this way means the QR code is directly usable by consumers to get to a product info / marketing page, and directly usable by the POS systems.
At family mart in China, some of the pastries are in bags with a QR code and a bar code. If it accidentally scans the QR code the self checkout (not in English) goes into a weird mode and I have to get help. So I just learned to cover the QR code for any packaging that had both it and a bar code on the same side.
I don't see how this is better, my first thoughts: more difficult to print, more difficult to scan, vulnerable to light shifts (imagine trying to scan a can with colored bar code in a club with flashing lights) and impossible to print in some technolgies.
Bar code won't go away exact for the reason it's super simple to scan and print. Even QR codes can't stand that (and if you tried scanning yourself grocery in soft bag with barcode in the corner which gets crumpled you know what I mean).
I think this is great! i've long wanted a future where i can stock my fridge and cupboards with goods and scan the barcodes in and be tracking what their expirations are to better manage when i need to restock or throw things out
In the UK I've noticed some items having 2D barcodes instead of 1D ones lately. Of course, all the scanners have been able to read them all for years now. They're not all QR codes, though. Other 2D barcodes exist.
What a bad piece. Optical is obsolete. Decathlon (here in France at least) has RFID on all their products, they're used as anti-theft, automatic tilling: you just put them in a box at the register and it knows what it is (also kills the chips once paid) and very likely they're used all along the logistic chain.
The chips are sub-cents per unit in terms of cost and weigh milligrams.
RFID chips come in many flavours the ones most used are passive, i.e. basically just a bunch of wires printed on a tiny piece of carrier material. The label on a shirt contains more resources by weight.
Merchandise point-of-sales tags isn't the only use of barcode or QR codes. Hospitals aren't going to start putting RFID for all equipment, files, and patients.
And what is average price of one product in Decathlon compared to Lidl? Apples and oranges. How do you put RFID on fruit, vegetables and pastry btw. or you propose wrapping everything in unnecessary packaging?
Sadly food tracking apps still don't read these codes. They are vibe coding new features constantly but not working on adding what is actually important.
Yazio, im talking to you...
I also like the aesthetics of QR codes better than traditional barcodes. They do kind of invoke the look of a Go board partway through a game, which is more visually interesting than the boring straight lines of the traditional barcode.
I have been deep into this space for a fair bit of time now. The real power is in Recalls and Return Fraud. There a ton of other nice things that this will empower of course. AMA - I will do my best to answer.
For some other stuff to read about how they can help have a poke at https://blog.closient.com/
Not advertising - just trying to get the word out on 2D codes and RFID and what they provide consumers.
For those saying "Why not something else?" - it comes down to adoption - QR was just the more popular winner. While the register/till is where most of the scanning is happening the QR is just a normal URL and consumer can scan them.
Just don't bury the core concept of your product in marketing-slop on your website (this site is certainly pushing that limit for me).
Surely the actual data will be stored in the QR code and available offline
Doing it this way means the QR code is directly usable by consumers to get to a product info / marketing page, and directly usable by the POS systems.
Edit: I looked it up. An example URL:
https://example.com/01/09521207311511/21/1234ABDE1235
01 is a marker before the traditional barcode.
21 is a marker before the serial number.
There seems to be many other codes like 17 (expiry date) and 10 (batch number).
Bar code won't go away exact for the reason it's super simple to scan and print. Even QR codes can't stand that (and if you tried scanning yourself grocery in soft bag with barcode in the corner which gets crumpled you know what I mean).
Hopefully they can reproduce and ensure the survival of their species.
Reminds me of RFID labels pipe dream.
Perhaps not for files, but definitely for equipment.
My diving mask and backpack certainly went through optical.