Fifty years after the barcode was invented, Tesco became in April 2026 the first UK supermarket to drop it in favour of 2D/QR — a strong signal of the accelerating GS1 Sunrise 2027 transition.
What it changes for you
When a retailer of that size moves, its suppliers follow — fast. The pressure lands immediately on product data quality and structure: you need a clean GTIN, a valid Digital Link, up-to-date attributes. Organizations whose product repository is already solid absorb this kind of requirement in days; the others improvise under pressure.