Tipp City Visitor’s Bureau

Local Trivia - First UPC Code

I‘m always hearing about local trivia and “news” about something that happened around Tipp City, like the Tale of the Escaped Lion or the long-ago Murder at Spring Hill. Some are true, some are rumor, but here’s something true from Troy, something that’s a little bit of history.

Did you know that the UPC Barcode, those little black and white stripes that now appear on every single product in the supermarket, started out just up the road in Troy, Ohio? On June 26, 1974, the first product with a bar code was scanned at a check-out counter at the Marsh’s supermarket in Troy - it was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum, which is now on display [digg=http://digg.com/offbeat_news/Local_Trivia_First_UPC_Code]at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. This UPC scanner was the first installed in a supermarket and was made by NCR Corp., which was then called National Cash Register Co. For more information, see the Bar Code History Page. The Marsh’s Supermarket, located at 982 N. Market, Troy, OH, is still in existence.