A World without Barcodes – Every Shopper’s Nightmare!
I woke up this wonderful Sunday morning, casually sauntered down to my kitchen, opened my fridge and found a dismal sight. On my shelves sat a couple of slices of bread, a half-eaten jar of marmalade, and half a litre of milk. None of these things will fully satisfy my Sunday brunching needs.
A quick shower and some jeans get me out of the door and to the super market. While musing about the veggies I wanted to put in my omelette, it occurred to me that the majority of these things in my grocery trolley were covered in the same things, labels. From sticky barcode labels to my nutritional information, my food was covered in electronic information.
As I gingerly ran my finger across the barcode of an unsuspecting carton of a dozen eggs, I tried to imagine what it would be like without technology.
It seemed to me, in that moment, that the modern world was composed of layers. The topmost layer was occupied by consumers like myself who ran out for breakfast items, and underneath me was the barcode labels whose series of black-dashed lines not only made it easier for the cashier to ring up my bill, but were also involved in keeping track of inventory in stores and monitoring the movement of goods across the country.
The very label I held in my hand after reaching for a carton of orange juice contained all of the nutritional information I needed, told me where my juice was from, who made it, how long before it goes bad, and even the percentage of pulp I would find when I tipped the fruity beverage into my mouth.
How many people were involved in the making of my brunch? Clearly, this was no farmer-consumer relationship. There were scientists figuring out the calories in all of my food, marketers designing the attractive coffee grinder graphics for the bag of coffee grounds next to my purse, barcodes printers creating the closely-lined barcode that tells the clerk, ?Two quid for these free-range eggs? on my dozen eggs.
Without these innovations, not only would businesses not be able to connect with the consumer so easily, but it would also means that I might find myself going to the shop only to realise that the grapefruits I wanted were out of stock. A mistake in a ledger without the automatic tracking of barcodes could mean that my food doesn’t get ordered and shipped to the store.
I also might find that my allergy to peanuts flares up because I don’t have labels that tell me which foods were processed in factories with nuts.
While it may seem silly to consider all of this, standing in the aisle 9 among bags of flour, sugar and baking chocolate, I am not bothered. Shopping without labels would be a nightmare! I am far too used to the conveniences of today.
That being said, perhaps it is better to get back to my breakfast.
Enjoy !
Tags: Barcode Labels, Brunch, Brunching, Carton, Cashier, Coffee Grinder, Coffee Grounds, Consumer Relationship, Dozen Eggs, Electronic Information, Free Range Eggs, Fridge, Litre, Marketers, Marmalade, Nutritional Information, Omelette, Orange Juice, Topmost Layer, Veggies