Thanks Willie
So I could just go with a standard set of barcodes for the cuts and add a "money-off barcode" to adjust that to the exact price for that pack? Presumably though, the money-off barcodes will still cost? Also, I'm avoiding the inspected/calibrated scale issue by being conservative on weight, ie the pack is a minimum of 510g on my scales and not 500 dead; am I being misguided here and potentially opening myself up for issues?
Grateful for your help here, its greatly appreciated.
Thank-you
Sadly I am not sure that it is necessarily going to be that simple.
A barcode is just a way of encapsulating data elements into a machine-readable format.
Put simply, when you scan a barcode (at least the simple ones) it is really just an alternative to typing in data by hand. Of course it is much faster than typing, and much less prone to error, which is a big part of why barcodes are so useful.
However much of the logic that is then applied sits within the systems that are consuming the data sent from the scanner that read the barcode label. To that extent you can somewhat be at the mercy of whatever software the store or outlet is using.
I have had a little bit more of a dig into this, so let's take at a simple use case. Here is a discount barcode label grabbed off Google:
We can read this barcode using an App such as SCANDIT, that you can download to your smart phone and then wander round the supermarket scanning labels for fun
Here is what happens if we read that same label using SCANDIT, first telling the App that it is to expect a simple 1D (1-dimensional) retail label - the text that is actually read by the scanner is displayed at the bottom:
So the product code on this label is "5013427013756", and the scanner has determined that the label uses EAN-13, meaning a European Article Number barcode with 13 digits.
Now if you look closely at the original photo, you can see the original barcode underneath the "Reduced" one, and this has the same product ID. Here is the photo inverted to make it easier to read:
Now if we instead tell the SCANDIT App to scan for "Any Code", this is the result:
The scanning software is smart enough to read the label and determine that it is a GS1 label encoded in a symbology called Code-128, or a GS1-128 barcode. You can see that the scanner has interpreted a far-longer string of data, which is again shown in human-readable format at the bottom of the image.
GS1-128 was designed to allow companies to exchange structured data via barcodes. It can carry up to 48 characters of information, so much more than just the 13 digit product code. The additional data could be used for such information as batch/lot number, a serial number (if relevant), expiry dates, etc. To do this it breaks the long string of data into different fields, and uses what are called Application Identifiers to define what data each of those fields contains. You can find a full list of Application Identifiers in the documentation
here. The graphic below shows how it works, but the important thing is the "Element String", which basically says "here is a field decriptor, and here is the associated data". There can be multiple element strings within a single barcode.
So let's now take the long data string on the label, "9715013427013756300005504"
Leaving aside the "971", we know already that "5013427013756" is the 13 digit product code, so this leaves "300005504" as the remaining data.
I can't help on the leading "3" but that "0055" looks like it represents the price that the item is reduced to, i.e. zero pounds and 55 pence.
Presumably then, the Point of Sale software is reading this barcode and using it to identify both the item and the reduced sale price.
This leaves us with a couple of opportunities but also a couple of challenges!
On the plus side, if you encode your labels to GS1-128 standard then you could include both the produce and the price. You could also add other information such as the expiry date.
On the minus side, it is going to make labeling quite a bit more complex and costly. You will need to register with GS1 and pay them a subscription. You will also need some software that allows you to encode the information to GS1-128 standard. You may be able to do this via GS1's website. You will also need to check with the retailer to see if their Point of Sale system will (a) accept these barcodes, and (b) apply the logic to override the retail price.
That still leaves the question of calibrated scales.
I would still recommend starting by speaking to the farm shop and get a clear picture of exactly what it is they are looking for. Better still, ask them if they have any other primary producers where they have already done the same, and then try to speak with them as well.
) yet these rang through at the till without issue.
