Barcodes are known to be helpful in a variety of operations. But during a workout? Well, not quite. Healthy lifestyle products and services have surged in popularity lately, such as watches with built-in pedometers and heart rate monitors. Dietary tracking is also a popular feature. Many programs allow users to keep a food profile, inputting their daily dishes to measure things like calories and sugar. The downside is the laborious task of manually inputting after each meal. Who wants to do that after each square meal? If only there was a more convenient way of entering data…hmmm…

Many diet tracking programs are available as apps on smartphones. This allows apps to access a phone’s camera, specifically to use as a barcode scanner. Users can eat a meal, easily scan the barcodes of any packaged products and the app will automatically generate nutritional information. A UPC barcode is a very simple, 12-digit number that is unique to each product. Apps scan UPCs and match them against a database of food products to populate info. It makes eating healthier a piece of cake. Well…a very small piece.

It’s amazing to think that a code that is primarily used for supply chain tracking has now become a way for consumers to stay on top of their diets. Think you’ve got a UPC application that will stump the Label Experts? Let us know!