GTIN isn’t just pricing information

Sharing of information about food products has become a major issue, founded not only in the changes of customers’ behaviour and development of technology, but also in the new regulations imposed on the producers and retailers, originating from the European Directive 2011/1169/EU on food product information provisions to the final consumers.

Thanks to the use of the bar code, which represents the standard GTIN (Global Trade Item Number), on the products’ packaging and with the use of a smartphone application, it has become possible to provide the customers with all required information. All this at a time, when two thirds of retailers and producers regard the bar code as useful only for logistics.

A recent survey, carried out by GS1 Czech Republic and CCV Information systems at the Prague Retail Summit, has shown that retail managers themselves see the GTIN displayed on packaging as a mere logistics piece of information. Only a third of them are aware of the fact that a bar code can be the key source of interesting and useful information about the product to the customer. The increase in the usage of smartphones can quickly change this situation of meagre awareness, however.