What is a GS1 barcode?

GS1 (Global Standards 1) is a not-for-profit organisation that works closely with industries to agree how information should be stored in a barcode. This ensures organisations around the world can extract meaningful information about a product when its barcode is scanned.In most cases, a barcode is simply a unique identifier that allows computer systems to track physical objects in the real world. In fact, any information can be encoded in a barcode, but unless the organisation scanning the barcode understands how the data was encoded and can extract and make sense of that data, it’s of little use. That’s the problem a GS1 barcode solves. Organisations agree on how information should be encoded and understand how to extract that data. Why are GS1 barcodes important?To understand why GS1 barcodes are important, first, let’s consider the lifecycle of a product:Manufacturer - sources raw materials and creates a productCourier 1 - collects the product and delivers to a distributorDistribut...