GS1 Races to Move 2,000 Retailers to 2D Barcodes by 2027

Some 2,000 retailers and 1,900 brands have already joined national pilots or implementations of 2D barcodes, GS1 reported at Pack Expo, as the standards body pushes the industry toward its "Sunrise 2027" deadline. By the end of 2027, GS1 wants packaging to carry data-rich 2D codes such as QR codes — and every retailer to be able to scan them at the point of sale.

The transition is voluntary, and it competes for attention with mandatory work. Brand owners currently juggle regulatory mandates on packaging, including compliance with extended producer responsibility schemes. GS1, the global data standards nonprofit, is nonetheless persuading businesses to prioritize the switch over the next year.

How should brands start?

Andrew Morehead, global standards manager with GS1 US, laid out a practical path in an Oct. 20 interview at Pack Expo. "If you have a very large product catalog, the best thing to do is to pick one or a few products where you know you have packaging real estate, because you have to have both the 1D and 2D barcode on for a time period," he said. "So they pick those products, they see what that implementation process looks like, and then they replicate it."

The dual-barcode period is a design constraint, not a formality. Brands transitioning SKUs must print both the 2D code and the traditional 1D barcode to avoid any gap at the point of sale. That strains real estate on the pack, and it exposes a workflow problem. In packaging design, "some may have marketing touch it first and barcoding touch last," Morehead said.

Brands that have implemented 2D codes are now scaling, and their speed varies with their regulatory load. "Some have a lot of regulations to meet, so they need to move faster than others," Morehead said. Traceability and identification rules for food, healthcare products or wine and spirits force some categories to accelerate.

What does the consumer get from scanning?

Changing consumer behavior may matter more than the brand-side rollout. A single scannable code can carry expiration dates, recall notices, recycling instructions and more. "There has to be value in even performing the scan," Morehead said.

Incentives can build the habit. Scanning a code could deliver a discount on the next purchase, Morehead noted. Some existing functions already let consumers scan a code to evaluate ingredients, which trains the behavior. "Those are the calls to action that'll help change consumer habits around just looking at a barcode and then actually choosing to scan it," he said.

Why is demand for 2D accelerating?

The underlying driver, according to Morehead, is data demand from every party in the supply chain.

"They want more data. The consumers want more data. The retailers want more data. And regulatory bodies require more data. So that imminent need is what's really driving the adoption of 2D barcodes within their practices, because you need to have more data somewhere, or at least to connect to it," he said. "Having a barcode that can have that data encoded into it without growing in size is the first step."

For brand owners, the message from Pack Expo is concrete: pick a few SKUs with spare packaging space now, run the dual-barcode period, and replicate the process across the catalog before the 2027 deadline narrows the runway.