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Wrigley's Juicy Fruit Gum - The 50th Anniversary of the First UPC Barcode Scan!
Wrigley's Juicy Fruit Gum - The 50th Anniversary of the First UPC Barcode Scan!
Wrigley's
Historical Significance
On June 26, 1974, at 8:01 A.M., a technological shift in global commerce occurred at Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The scanning of a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum marked the first successful commercial application of the Universal Product Code (UPC) at a retail point-of-sale.
The transaction, processed via an NCR Model 255 computerized cash register, successfully tallied a price of 67 cents. This event signaled the end of manual price-keying and the birth of modern automated inventory logistics. While the original 1974 packet was subsequently interred at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, the legacy of the barcode remains the foundational "language" of global trade.
The Westport Tech Museum Synchronization
To commemorate the 50th Anniversary (Golden Jubilee) of this milestone, the Westport Tech & Nostalgia Museum executed a Synchronized Acquisition. At precisely 8:01 A.M. on June 26, 2024, this specific unit of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit was scanned and purchased in Westport, CT.
This acquisition serves as a temporal bridge, honoring the half-century of efficiency, data tracking, and retail evolution sparked by that first infrared scan in 1974. It stands as a "Witness Exhibit," documenting the enduring ubiquity of the UPC system.
