History of GS1 US Standards Organization
From 1984 until 2005, the Uniform Code Council (UCC) assigned UPC Company Prefixes to companies who intended to provide products to US retailers. The UPC Company Prefix was a applied for UPC Company prefixes and P was the designated US standards organization which administered identification standards and UPC assignments.
The UCC was formed by a group of grocery industry trade associations with the purpose of creating and administering an identification standard for the grocery industry in the US. . The name was changed to the Uniform Code Council (UCC) was founded as small non-profit organization to organize standards and assign UPC numbers to grocery manufacturers. The UCC was originally financed by the grocery industry.
Today, GS1 identification standards are now adopted by many industries. On December 17, 2013, the FDA announced GS1 US was named as an accrediting agency to issue medical device identifiers (UDI)
Evolution of GS1 (UCC)
1966 – National Association of Food Chains (NAFC) began investigating solutions to speed the
checkout process.
1967 – First scanning system installed at Kroger store in Cincinnati and read bulls-eye type
barcodes on labels manually placed on products.
1969- NAFC pushed for the creation of an industry wide barcode scanning system which
yielded committees to work on the Universal Grocery Products Identification Code
(UGPIC).
1973- The Uniform Grocery Code Council (UGPCC) committee recommended the use of the UPC
barcode symbol.
1974- On June 26, 1974 the first UPC barcode was scanned on 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit
chewing gum at Marsh supermarket in Troy, OH.
1974 – With the scope of product identification expanding outside the grocery industry, the
UGPCC became the Uniform Product Code Council (UPCC).
1983 – The UPCC agrees to administer the Uniform Communications Standards (UCS) for the EDI
standards which computer to computer communication for grocery and public warehouses.
1984 – To reflect the UCS standards, the UPCC changed it name to the Uniform Code Council
(UCC).
2005 – UCC became GS1 US.
