The black-and-white striped barcode has lived on supermarket products for over fifty years. Its replacement is already being printed onto packaging in dozens of countries. Under GS1's Sunrise 2027 initiative, retailers worldwide are committing to scan QR codes at the till by the end of 2027. The technology behind that shift is called GS1 Digital Link, and it changes what a single scan can do.

What Is GS1 Digital Link?

GS1 Digital Link is a global standard, first published by GS1 in 2018, that lets a single QR code carry the same product identifier as a traditional barcode while also linking out to live web content. Instead of encoding only a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), the code holds a structured URL that retailers, brands, and shoppers can all use, each for different purposes, from the same scan.

GS1 is the not-for-profit organisation that has governed product identification standards since 1973. It maintains the GTIN, EAN, and UPC barcode systems used on roughly every retail product in the world. GS1 Digital Link is the next iteration of those standards, designed for a world where every shopper carries a barcode scanner in their pocket.

What Is Sunrise 2027?

Sunrise 2027 is GS1's official global migration target. By the end of 2027, retailers around the world are committing that their point-of-sale systems will be capable of scanning 2D barcodes (QR Code or GS1 DataMatrix) carrying GS1 product data, alongside the traditional 1D barcodes they have used since 1974.

The initiative does not mandate that brands switch overnight. It guarantees that the infrastructure will be ready, so any brand that wants to print a QR code instead of a striped barcode can do so without breaking checkout in any participating country. This is the unlock. Once retailers can scan 2D codes reliably, brands have an incentive to consolidate the half-dozen logos, codes, and disclaimers on their packaging into one scannable square.

For context: the first UPC barcode was scanned commercially on 26 June 1974 on a packet of Wrigley's chewing gum at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. That format has barely changed since. Sunrise 2027 marks the largest revision to retail product identification in over half a century.

Why the Switch Is Happening

Four pressures are pushing the move from 1D to 2D. None of them on their own would force a fifty-year-old standard out of retirement. Together, they make it inevitable.

How a GS1 Digital Link QR Code Works

A GS1 Digital Link QR code does not contain plain product information. It contains a structured URL. The path segments encode GS1 Application Identifiers (AIs), the same numerical codes used in traditional GS1 barcodes. Anything that understands GS1 data can pull values out of the URL. Anything that does not, like a normal phone camera, treats it as an ordinary web link and opens it.

Reading that URL in plain English: 01 is the AI for GTIN, so the product identifier is 09506000164908. 10 is the AI for batch or lot number, here ABC123. 17 is the AI for use-by date, encoded as 261231 for 31 December 2026. A point-of-sale system extracts the GTIN and rings the product through. A consumer's phone follows the URL and lands on a brand-controlled landing page.

The Resolver Layer

Brands rarely encode their own domain into the QR code directly. GS1 has built a global resolver service so a generic link, anchored to a brand's GTIN, redirects to whatever destination the brand is currently pointing at. Change the destination at any time, and every code already in circulation routes to the new page. This is why dynamic QR codes matter at scale.

Who Is Already Adopting It

Sunrise 2027 is not theoretical. The shift has been underway for years, with regulators, retailers, and large brands pushing the front edge.

What This Means If You Are a Brand

If you sell physical product into retail, the next two years are the planning window. The migration is gradual, not abrupt, but the brands that start now will land softer than the ones who treat it as a 2027 problem.

What This Means If You Are a Retailer

Retailers carry the heaviest lift in the Sunrise 2027 transition. Every checkout lane, every handheld scanner, every self-service kiosk needs to be able to read 2D codes and parse GS1-formatted data out of them.

• Scanner upgrades: Most laser scanners installed in the last decade cannot read 2D codes. Imager-based scanners that handle both 1D and 2D have been the new-install standard for years, but legacy fleets still dominate many estates.
• Software changes: The point-of-sale software needs to recognise a GS1 Digital Link URL, extract the GTIN, and treat the rest of the data appropriately. Most major POS vendors now ship support for this out of the box.
• Staff training: The 2D code looks different, scans differently, and may behave differently if expiry data triggers automated markdowns. Frontline staff need a heads-up.

What This Means If You Are a Shopper

From the customer's perspective, the change is mostly invisible at the till. The cashier scans the same way, the receipt looks the same. The new behaviour appears at home, in the aisle, and after the sale.

Pull out a phone and scan the code on a tin. Instead of a generic search result, you get the brand's product page with the exact batch, the country of origin, the recycling instructions, the recipe inspiration, and confirmation that the unit has not been recalled. For shoppers managing allergies, dietary restrictions, or sustainability preferences, this is a meaningful upgrade over the squinting-at-tiny-print status quo.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will traditional 1D barcodes stop working in 2027?

No. Sunrise 2027 commits retailers to be able to scan 2D codes by the deadline, alongside the 1D codes they already scan. Traditional UPC and EAN barcodes will continue to work indefinitely. The transition is about adding capability, not removing it.

What is the difference between a GS1 QR Code and a regular QR code?

Any QR code can encode any text or URL. A GS1 QR Code specifically encodes a GS1 Digital Link URL, structured to GS1's standards so retail point-of-sale systems can extract product data from it. Functionally they are the same QR shape, just with carefully formatted contents.

Do brands need to pay GS1 to use Digital Link?

Brands already pay GS1 for the GTIN itself, since GTINs are licensed numbers. Generating GS1 Digital Link URLs from a licensed GTIN does not require an additional fee, though large brands often subscribe to GS1's resolver and verification services.

What happens if a phone scans a GS1 QR code but the resolver is down?

A well-formed GS1 Digital Link URL points at a real domain, so the phone follows it normally. If the brand's web infrastructure is unreachable, the user sees a standard browser error. The point-of-sale scan is unaffected because the till parses the URL locally without needing the network.

Can shoppers tell whether a code is a GS1 QR Code or a marketing QR code?

Visually, no. They look identical. The difference is in what the code resolves to and whether the till recognises it. Brands often print a small "scan me" affordance and a logo to indicate that the code carries useful product information rather than a generic marketing landing page.

The Bigger Picture

Sunrise 2027 is one of those infrastructure shifts that takes a decade to land and then feels obvious in hindsight. The 1D barcode was an improvement on writing prices on paper tags. The 2D barcode is an improvement on the 1D barcode in the same way. It does the same job, then keeps going.

The brands that treat the migration as a packaging compliance exercise will get a smaller, cheaper version of what they have today. The brands that treat it as an interface to the shopper, one square that owns the moment of decision, will land somewhere very different.