A client will ask you about 2D codes this year
Manufacturers are redesigning packaging for 2D codes and the product passport. The decision is made in packaging or supply chain, but the execution lands on the artwork.
Why this reaches your desk
The question comes out of nowhere
A client raises it in a status meeting, and a sensible answer requires knowing a GS1 standard nobody in the agency had a reason to learn.
An ordinary QR looks identical and does not work
A code from a free generator is not GS1 compliant, will not pass validation and behaves like noise at the till. You cannot tell by looking.
You will not hire someone for one project
And sending the client to an outside vendor hands over a piece of a relationship you spent years building.
What we propose
Technical backup under your brand
We work as your subcontractor. The client relationship, the presentation and the invoice stay with you.
Codes that pass validation
We generate and check GS1 compliant symbols, with print ready files and documentation for the client's quality team.
A new line in your offer
Scans are a campaign result you could never attribute to packaging before. You sell the creative and the data together.
First UK supermarket to move an entire own label range onto 2D codes. They started with sausages. Carrefour is doing the same across its private label.
Share of GS1 UK members who had already rolled out GS1 powered QR codes by May 2025, with another 33 percent planning it within a year.
Unreadable code complaints logged by a supplier to Polish retailer Żabka over nine months in 2022. Three months after switching to 2D, the count was zero.
What happens when somebody scans this code
There is a real resolver running underneath, not a recording. Pick a situation or scan the code with your phone and you will see exactly what a shopper sees at the shelf.
Picks up the juice and scans the code
A product page opens in their language: ingredients, allergens, origin, the date from their own pack and sorting instructions. All on one screen.
You get contact with a buyer who is otherwise invisible to you when a retailer owns the sale.
Show what happens underneath+
The address held in the code and the server response. Pass this to your IT team.
HTTP ...Scan it with your phone. The same code serves the till and the shopper.
It is the same code in every situation. What changes is who scans it.
Situations rotate every few seconds. Click any of them to stop.
Who talks to the client?+
You do, unless you prefer otherwise. We can join a meeting as your technical team or stay entirely invisible.
What does a first project look like?+
Usually one product as a trial: code, resolver, landing page and a scan report after a few weeks. That is the material you take back for a bigger budget.
What if the client already has an IT vendor?+
Even better. Then we deliver the code and resolver layer only, and their team handles integration on their side using our documentation.
Send us one code, we will send back an analysis
A photo of the pack or a sample of your product data is enough. We will tell you what is correct, what will break at the till and what is missing for the product passport. Expect a reply within a few working days.
The analysis is free and commits you to nothing. If it turns out you do not need this yet, we will say so.
For brand owners and manufacturers
Right now there is a number sitting there that nobody reads. The same spot can carry something that works for as long as the product is on shelf.
For brandsFor retailers
A linear barcode carries one fact: which product this is. Everything else, the date and the batch, lives on paper and in the heads of the people on the shop floor.
For retailers