Beep Beep: The History of George Laurer and the Barcode

How a 67-cent pack of Juicy Fruit, and a guy who said no, changed the way we shopped

Chris Stokel-Walker
OneZero
Published in
11 min readDec 10, 2019

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Photo illustration: Chris Stokel-Walker. Source: Wikipedia/Public domain

Author’s note: This story was initially reported in 2014 but was not published. It’s released here today in memory of George Laurer, who died on December 10, 2019 at the age of 94.

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Chris Stokel-Walker
OneZero

UK-based freelancer for The Guardian, The Economist, BuzzFeed News, the BBC and more. Tell me your story, or get me to write for you: stokel@gmail.com