The first BAR CODES were introduced at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The first bar-coded product to be scanned and passed through the checkout was at 8.01 a.m. on 26 June 1974. The historic item was Wrigley’s chewing gum, but historians are still arguing about whether it was a 10-pack or a single packet.
In Britain, the first product pack to be bar-coded was Melroses 100 Century Tea Bags in the summer of 1978. The first retailer to introduce bar code scanning at the point of sale was Key Market at Spalding Lines on 3 October 1979. The system used IBM hardware.