Prolific North recently partnered with Sun Branding to host an exclusive roundtable discussion on one of the packaging industry’s most significant upcoming transformations: GS1 Sunrise 2027.
Held at Platform in Leeds, the intimate session brought together senior packaging, marketing and operations leaders from major FMCG brands, alongside consulting experts and the Sun Branding team.
The morning session was designed to move beyond awareness and into practical action – helping busy brand leaders understand not just what’s changing, but how to prepare their organisations for a shift that represents the biggest packaging and point-of-sale transformation in decades.
Attendees:
- Chair: David Prior
- Alan Casserley, Director of Packaging, Dole plc
- Richard King, Experienced Leader in Packaging Development, AG Barr
- Kerry Morrison, Head of Retail, GS1 UK
- Benjy Owusu-Daaku, Engagement Manager, GS1 UK
- Gillian Garside-White, Director of Consulting, Aura Consultants
- Kevin Mcaulay, Business Development Director, Sun Branding
- Andy Johnson, Commercial Director, Sun Branding
- Helen Brannan, Marketing Director, Sun Branding
- Rebecca Cusworth, Head of Legal, Sun Branding
Understanding GS1 Sunrise 2027
GS1 Sunrise 2027 marks the end of an era for linear barcodes as the sole retail standard. By the end of 2027, all point-of-sale systems globally must be capable of reading 2D barcodes – QR codes and DataMatrix – in addition to traditional 1D barcodes. But this isn’t simply a technical upgrade; it’s a fundamental reimagining of what packaging can do.
Whilst 1D barcodes can only hold 12–14 digits of information (essentially just a product identifier), 2D codes can store up to 400 data points including batch numbers, expiry dates, serial numbers, country of origin, and crucially, a digital link via the GS1 Digital Link standard that connects consumers directly to brand experiences and information.
The initiative responds to multiple pressures: regulatory requirements for greater traceability, consumer demands for transparency and sustainability credentials, the need for more sophisticated supply chain management, and upcoming Digital Product Passport legislation that will require comprehensive product information to be digitally accessible.
The GS1 UK Presentation: From compliance to opportunity
Kerry Morrison, head of retail at GS1 UK, and Benjy Owusu-Daaku, engagement manager, led the session with a clear message: whilst 2027 might seem like a compliance deadline, the real story is about strategic opportunity. Their presentation emphasised that by 2030, industry leaders expect QR codes to be the norm within retail, and 69% see them as integral to their growth plans.
The pair shared compelling case studies demonstrating the breadth of applications already being deployed:
Unilever’s Accessibility Initiative: Working with RNIB and NaviLens, Unilever created accessible QR codes specifically designed for visually impaired consumers, seeing significantly higher scan rates versus average QR codes when a genuine consumer need was being met.
Bayer’s Creative Disruption: The pharmaceutical brand placed a bold QR code front-of-pack as a deliberate disruptor to shopping behaviour, whilst simultaneously removing informational leaflets from packaging – delivering both enhanced consumer engagement and significant supply chain cost savings.
Tesco’s Expiry Management Revolution: Perhaps the most striking example, Tesco embedded sell-by dates within QR codes during trials, with systems refusing to scan out-of-date products at checkout. The result? Expired product sales dropped to zero, eliminating fines, improving customer satisfaction, and strengthening brand equity in one fell swoop.
Ocado’s Welsh Digital Deposit Return Trial: Demonstrating consumer willingness to engage with digital sustainability schemes, 3,000 consumers averaged 7.5 packs recycled per person when rewarded 20p for scanning and confirming curbside recycling – powerful evidence for government stakeholders.
Morrison emphasised a critical behavioural insight: consumer adoption follows a predictable pattern. Just as self-checkout faced initial resistance before becoming ubiquitous once consumers understood the efficiency benefits, 2D codes will see exponential uptake once the value proposition is clear. The key is ensuring that value is genuinely useful – localised recycling instructions, authenticity verification, rewards for sustainable behaviour – rather than generic corporate website links that squander the opportunity.
Key discussion themes
The organisational challenge: Who owns this?
One of the most animated discussions centred on internal ownership. The transition touches operations, marketing, sustainability, legal, supply chain and IT – making it organisationally complex. Attendees from Dole and AG Barr acknowledged they’re still determining where responsibility should sit within their businesses.
From the case studies, patterns emerged: at Tesco, it sat with technical and operations teams solving supply chain efficiency challenges; at Unilever, it began with accessibility and consumer experience; at Bayer, it was driven by sustainability goals. The consensus: this requires cross-functional steering groups, but the “right” home depends on each organisation’s strategic priorities and what problems they’re trying to solve.
Alan Casserley from Dole raised a crucial strategic question: “If we take a lead on this, we own the data. If we don’t, retail owns the data.” This framing – that early adoption is about competitive advantage and direct consumer relationships rather than mere compliance – resonated strongly with attendees.
The dual marking period and design constraints
Significant discussion focused on the practical reality of a transition period requiring both 1D and 2D codes on pack. For brands selling across multiple markets with different readiness levels, this could mean five years of dual marking – creating real design challenges, particularly for smaller pack formats.
The health and beauty sector was highlighted as particularly challenging, with already-truncated barcodes on products like toothpaste boxes. However, Morrison noted that some health and beauty brands are seeing this as an opportunity to rationalise excessive packaging – removing paper inserts and outer packaging layers once information can be digitised, creating both cost savings and sustainability benefits.
The point was raised that end-of-line customisation capabilities will need upgrading to print variable QR codes containing batch-specific information, representing additional capital investment for many manufacturers.
Data: The foundation and the challenge
Multiple attendees identified data infrastructure as their biggest concern. Richard King from AG Barr said: “It’s not just apples or pears or potatoes. It’s lots of SKUs packaged in different ways for different retail needs, coming from supply chains that often aren’t decided until three weeks before.”
The group discussed a sobering reality: many organisations don’t have accurate counts of their own SKUs, let alone granular data on country of origin, batch information, recyclability by municipality, or carbon footprint by component. Getting this “data house in order” is foundational to everything else.
However, Morrison positioned this positively: companies are using 2027 as a catalyst to fix long-standing data inefficiencies. AI is helping create guardrails and fact-checking capabilities. And critically, the same core dataset – properly structured – serves multiple purposes: EPR compliance, plastic packaging tax, scope 1-2-3 carbon accounting, Digital Product Passports, and consumer engagement. Build it once, deploy it everywhere.
Consumer experience: Beyond the QR Code to nowhere
A passionate discussion emerged around what happens when consumers scan. The group agreed that generic landing pages or simple website redirects waste the potential entirely. The experience must be genuinely useful at the moment of truth.
Examples of valuable experiences discussed:
- Localised recycling instructions: “This goes in the blue bin” or “Nearest return point is 200 metres away”
- Sustainability transparency: Carbon footprint, material provenance, circularity credentials
- Product authentication: Particularly for premium products and anti-counterfeiting
- Loyalty and rewards: First-party data capture with clear value exchange
- Hyper-relevant content: Recipes, usage instructions, seasonal promotions based on scan location and time
One participant noted Pringles’ pragmatic approach: they simply put a QR code on pack linking to their website with no sophisticated experience – purely to measure scan rates. The data proved consumer willingness to scan, which then justified investment in richer experiences.
The question of consumer overwhelm was raised: with promotional teams, loyalty teams, sustainability teams and others all wanting their content accessible via the QR code, how do brands avoid creating digital clutter? The answer: thoughtful UX design with menu-based navigation, allowing consumers to self-select their priorities whilst brands track what resonates.
Legislative drivers and market readiness
The discussion touched on varying regional drivers. Brazil’s extreme penalties for selling expired products (up to 10 years imprisonment for store owners) drove rapid adoption there. EU Digital Product Passport legislation – starting with batteries in 2026, then electronics – creates urgency beyond retail efficiency.
On market readiness, Morrison provided reassurance: most point-of-sale scanners already read 2D codes (loyalty cards use them), and the healthcare sector completed this transition over a decade ago using the same scanner manufacturers that supply retail. The technical capability exists; it’s about system configuration and data processing.
For brands, the picture is more varied. All major FMCG manufacturers have awareness and activity underway, though often in non-UK markets first. Medium and smaller brands show much lower awareness, representing both a challenge and an opportunity for early movers to differentiate.
Practical implementation strategies
The group coalesced around several practical recommendations:
Start with dual marking on initial SKUs: Test and learn on a subset of products to reduce risk and accelerate organisational learning before full rollout.
Align with natural business cycles: Integrate QR code adoption into scheduled artwork refreshes, range extensions, or innovation launches rather than creating standalone projects. Innovation typically has bigger budgets and more marketing support, making it ideal for establishing consumer scanning behaviour.
Ensure GS1 Digital Link compliance: This standard is what enables codes to work seamlessly across point-of-sale, logistics, and consumer touchpoints – it’s non-negotiable for interoperability.
Think beyond pack design to experience design: The QR code placement and call-to-action messaging matter enormously. Some brands are making codes boldly visible as engagement drivers; others are integrating them aesthetically into design elements.
Use above-the-line marketing to establish scanning behaviour: If you’re investing in TV, social, or other campaigns, direct consumers to scan the on-pack code, creating a trackable, continuous engagement channel that extends campaign ROI.
Looking ahead: Strategic positioning
As the session concluded, a clear theme emerged: the winners in this transition will be those who move first and define what connected packaging means in their categories. Waiting until 2027 means following rather than leading, and missing years of consumer data, behaviour insights, and relationship building.
For produce supplier Dole, this means potentially pioneering approaches for fresh categories where traceability and provenance are increasingly important to consumers. For AG Barr in beverages, it connects to deposit return schemes and sustainability messaging. For all attendees, it represents a rare moment when regulatory pressure, consumer expectations, and technological capability align to enable genuine transformation.
The question hanging in the air as participants networked over coffee: not whether to adopt connected packaging, but how boldly to seize the opportunity whilst competitors are still planning.
