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GS1 Sunrise 2027 and the ticking clock

The retail industry is moving from the familiar barcode to 2D codes that carry far more than a price lookup. The target date is 2027, and for retail food brands it’s both a packaging deadline and a rare reason to rethink the pack.

What’s actually changing

A single scannable code can hold batch data, best-before information and a link to a destination of your choosing. At the till it still rings up; everywhere else it can do much more.

The opportunity hiding in the compliance

Every pack becomes a potential first-party connection, recipes, provenance, recycling guidance, reorder. The brands that treat Sunrise as a design and CRM project, not just an artwork change, will get the most from it.

Plan the print runs backwards

Artwork cycles are long. Map your repro timelines against 2027 now, so the change lands on a run you were doing anyway rather than an emergency reprint.

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Wherever your brand is right now, defending a lead, entering a new category or ready for a fresh chapter, we'd love to hear about it and see how we can help.