How Bar Code Scanners May Soon Tell You If Your Food Has Been Recalled

The familiar grocery-store barcode, a staple since 1974, is getting an upgrade that could make it easier to track down contaminated food and get recalled products off shelves faster.

The new 2D barcodes look more like the square QR codes people scan with their phones than the familiar rows of black lines on a UPC. They can carry lot numbers, production dates and expiration dates, giving food safety investigators and retailers more to work with when something goes wrong.

The need for the kind of food-safety information the new 2D barcodes can carry was strikingly illustrated this summer by a massive cyclospora outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce contaminated with the diarrhea-causing parasite

As of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest update, nearly 9,500 people in 17 in states had been sickened with cyclosporiasis. About 400 people have been hospitalized, and the outbreak has been linked ot two deaths.

Cyclospora isn't the only recent reminder of the challenges involved in tracing contaminated food. Federal officials this year have investigated a salmonella outbreak linked to eggs and a listeria outbreak linked to soft cheese, among other cases. The egg recall alone involved more than 1.5 million dozen eggs sold under several brand names, with consumers told to check plant codes and date codes to determine whether cartons were affected.

The cyclospora outbreak shows how critical the details unlocked with the new barcodes can be in controlling the spread of diseases and illnesses. The recalled iceberg lettuce was sold in multiple package types and lots and distributed to consumers, restaurants and retailers in at least 31 states, including some Taco Bell locations and Marketside-brand products at select Walmart stores.

Four Big Benefits

Here are four ways the new barcodes could help the next time contaminated food moves through the supply chain:

1. Cyclospora shows why faster traceback matters.

In the current cyclospora outbreak, federal and state investigators worked backward through the supply chain until epidemiological and traceback evidence pointed to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico. The company subsequently recalled all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico.

A traditional UPC primarily identifies what a product is. A 2D barcode can go further, carrying information that identifies the particular batch or lot and, depending on the product, production or expiration dates.

That can give food companies, retailers and investigators another way to follow suspect food through processors, distributors and stores.

2. Recalls could zero in on the food that actually poses a risk.

A recall involving lettuce, eggs or another widely distributed food can include numerous packages, dates and production lots.

With lot information built into a scannable code, retailers can more readily distinguish affected products from otherwise identical food produced at another time.

That can allow a recall to target the affected lots instead of treating every package carrying the same traditional product code as suspect. GS1's guidance for fresh foods specifically identifies traceability at the point of sale as one use for the additional information carried in the codes.

3. A recalled product could be stopped at checkout.

This may be the most tangible change for shoppers.

When a retailer's systems are equipped to use the additional data, information encoded in a 2D barcode can be used to identify a particular batch or lot when the product is scanned.

That opens the door to stopping the sale of an affected lot at checkout rather than relying solely on someone finding and removing every recalled package before a shopper puts it in a cart.

4. Stores could identify affected inventory more precisely.

Finding the source of contamination is only part of a recall. Companies also have to determine where the food went and whether affected products remain in warehouses, stores, restaurants or consumers' homes.

Lot-level information gives businesses a more precise way to identify affected inventory as it moves through the supply chain.

That challenge was evident in the cyclospora outbreak. The Taylor Farms recall encompassed numerous lettuce products, package sizes and date ranges distributed across much of the country.

You May See Barcodes Now

The transition is already underway in the United States, although adoption varies by retailer and product.

GS1 US says retailers are already testing and upgrading checkout systems so they can read 2D barcodes and the additional product information they can carry.

Some U.S. food companies and retailers are also already using the underlying traceability tools.

Wegmans, for example, has tested GS1 standards for tracking ingredients used in store-made sushi. The supermarket chain created product identifiers and batch or lot numbers for finished sushi trays so they could be followed through its operations.

Similar GS1-based systems are already used in the U.S. foodservice supply chain. Subway suppliers and distributors use barcodes carrying lot and date information, while suppliers serving Applebee’s and IHOP restaurants have used GS1 standards to track batch numbers, production dates, sell-by dates and other information as food moves through distribution centers.

Consumers may increasingly see square 2D codes alongside traditional UPC barcodes on packages as manufacturers and retailers make the broader transition toward the 2027 target.

Who’s Behind The Change?

GS1 is the nonprofit standards organization behind the product-identification system used for UPC barcodes. Its standards allow manufacturers, distributors and retailers to identify products and exchange information about them as they move through the supply chain.

Its Sunrise 2027 initiative calls for retail point-of-sale systems to be capable of scanning and processing GS1-standard 2D barcodes by the end of 2027.

That doesn't mean every familiar UPC disappears when the calendar turns to 2028. Both barcode formats can coexist during the transition, and the timetable depends in part on the capabilities of retailers and their trading partners

The barcode transition also isn't an FDA mandate.

Separately, the FDA's Food Traceability Rule requires additional lot-level recordkeeping for certain foods that the agency has identified as warranting greater traceability. FDA says the requirements are intended to allow potentially contaminated food to be identified and removed from the market faster.

Congress has directed the FDA not to enforce that rule before July 20, 2028. The rule does not require businesses to put the required information in a 2D barcode.

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