---
title: "Bar None: How a Terp Invented One of the Biggest Innovations in Retail"
date: 2024-06-26T05:30:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/bar-none-how-a-terp-invented-one-of-the-biggest-innovations-in-retail"
section: Articles
---
# Bar None: How a Terp Invented One of the Biggest Innovations in Retail

*June 26, 2024* — by [Maggie Haslam](/author/maggie-haslam)


> The UPC, Created 50 Years Ago, Still Shapes Our Shopping

*Georgelaurer ihof whitesymposium 1920x1080 — George Laurer '51, inventor of the Universal Product Code, is shown at the A. James Clark School of Engineering's Innovation Hall of Fame in 2011. He was inducted 20 years earlier.*

Shoppers breezing through a Target self-checkout, eyeing the dizzying array of jarred spaghetti sauce at Safeway or comparing tank tops on Amazon may not register the rectangular, 12-digit miracle that makes their purchases possible—or the University of Maryland alum who created it.

But 50 years ago on Wednesday, the Universal Product Code (or UPC) irrevocably transformed the global economy—and the consumer experience as we know it—with the swipe of a 67-cent pack of Wrigley’s gum in a Troy, Ohio, grocery store. Today, it can be found on plane tickets, comically large packages of paper towels and pouches of donated blood. Young people tattoo it on their bodies to be ironic, and Christian fundamentalists claimed to find the “mark of the beast” lurking in the code.

The far-reaching impacts of the UPC likely didn’t occur to George Laurer ’51 when he devised the series of black bars and spaces; he simply wanted to make shopping faster and pricing more accurate.


*closeup of UPC being scanned — Photo by Adobe Stock*




**Topics:** [People](https://today.umd.edu/tags/people)


**Tags:** [Alumni](https://today.umd.edu/topic/alumni), [Electrical and Computer Engineering](https://today.umd.edu/topic/electrical-and-computer-engineering)


**Units:** [A. James Clark School of Engineering](https://today.umd.edu/topic/james-clark-school-engineering)