How Did a Pack of Gum Change Shopping Forever?

Self-checkout or regular checkout, there's almost always gum near the register.

You scan your groceries, hear the familiar beep, and glance at the gum nearby. Maybe one last pack?

Funny enough, that little pack has a history with the scanner right in front of you.

The first product scanned at a supermarket checkout using a UPC barcode was Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum, back in 1974.

And it wasn't a random choice. There was a reason gum got to go first.

Before the Beep

Before scanners, grocery shopping involved a lot more work at the register.

Cashiers read prices from individual packages and entered them manually. A full cart meant dozens of prices to check and keys to press. Store employees also had to attach price stickers and replace them whenever prices changed.

As supermarkets grew, so did the problem. More products meant more prices to manage, more inventory to track, and more opportunities for mistakes.

The search for a better system began in 1948, when Bernard Silver, a graduate student at Philadelphia's Drexel Institute of Technology, learned that a supermarket executive wanted a machine that could identify products automatically.

Silver shared the problem with his friend Norman Joseph Woodland.

Inspired by Morse code, Woodland imagined representing information with lines of different widths. The two inventors received a patent in 1952, but their idea was ahead of its time.

Early scanning equipment was bulky and expensive. Computers weren't yet practical for widespread supermarket use. And even with better machines, manufacturers still needed to agree on a common identification system.

In 1973, the grocery industry adopted the Universal Product Code (UPC), based on a design by IBM engineer George Laurer.

The industry finally had a barcode it could agree on. The next challenge was getting it through a checkout.

Why a Pack of Gum?

On June 26, 1974, a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, was ready to demonstrate a new kind of checkout.

Clyde Dawson, the company's research and development executive, was the first shopper. He brought a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum to cashier Sharon Buchanan.

Buchanan passed the package's barcode across the scanner.

The machine read it. The register recorded 67 cents.

That ordinary transaction became the first commercial supermarket checkout scan using the UPC system.

But why gum? Why not a cereal box or a can of soup?

According to Dawson's later account, he chose the gum to show that a barcode could be printed and read even on a small package.

It worked. A barcode didn't need a big box to be useful.

The barcode itself wasn't new. What changed that morning was its place in everyday shopping.

Still, one successful scan didn't mean everyone was ready to embrace the technology.

Especially the customers.

Not Everyone Loved the Barcode

Faster checkouts sound like an easy idea to support. Who wants to spend more time waiting in line?

But in the 1970s, barcode scanners raised questions that had little to do with speed.

For years, shoppers could pick up a product and see its price printed or stamped directly on the package. Computerized scanning meant stores could keep prices in a central system instead.

Individual price stickers might disappear.

That was convenient for retailers, especially during a period of high inflation when employees frequently had to update prices.

For customers, though, the change wasn't so reassuring.

How could shoppers check prices before reaching the register? And what if the computer charged more than the shelf label showed?

Consumer advocates pushed back against removing individual price tags. Some states considered or adopted item-pricing requirements, while labor groups worried that automation could eventually reduce checkout jobs.

Those little black lines had become part of a much bigger debate about transparency and trust.

And the concern had a practical basis.

A UPC doesn't contain the product's selling price. It identifies the product, while the store's computer supplies the price.

Change the price in the system, and the same barcode can ring up a different amount.

For retailers, changing prices in a computer was a major convenience. For shoppers, it raised a question that no scanner could answer: Could they trust the price?

Beyond the Checkout

Once barcode scanning became more widespread, its value reached far beyond the register.

Every scan could create a record of what had been sold. Instead of relying only on manual counts and paperwork, stores could use sales data to see which products were moving quickly and which needed restocking.

That information helped retailers manage inventory and coordinate with suppliers. Over time, standardized barcodes became part of the systems connecting manufacturers, warehouses, and stores.

The idea eventually spread into hospitals, libraries, shipping centers, and countless other places where identifying an item quickly matters.

And while today's QR codes use a different, two-dimensional design, they share the broader concept of connecting printed patterns with digital information.

Still, the barcode's most familiar job remains wonderfully ordinary.

A cashier picks up a product. A scanner reads a few black lines. The register identifies it.

The next time you hear that beep, take a look at the gum beside the register.

The gum was gone in no time.

The beep stayed.

References: Smithsonian Magazine · IBM · GS1 · Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond · Drexel University