In 2027 the retail world crosses a threshold: GS1 Sunrise 2027, the ambitious migration that moves the world’s product barcodes onto the 2D GS1 Digital Link standard. If you sell products with a barcode — and you almost certainly do — this is the most important packaging change of the next two years.
What is Sunrise 2027?
GS1, the standards body behind the barcode we’ve known for 50 years, has committed to “digital at the point of scan”. The goal: by the end of 2027, retailers and suppliers should be able to scan a single 2D barcode (like a QR code) at checkout and retrieve everything — product identity, batch, serial, expiry, certifications — from a standards-based Digital Link rather than a plain number in a database.
A barcode stops being a number and becomes a doorway. Every scan is a request for richer, fresher, standards-based product data.
Why should you care?
- Retail readiness: major retailers are on board and will increasingly prefer GS1 Digital Link symbols on shelf.
- Regulatory headroom: Digital Product Passports and traceability rules are built around 2D, standards-based carriers.
- Consumer expectation: shoppers already scan; give them hazard data, provenance and campaigns on that same symbol.
Where does CLIQ Matrix fit?
Sunrise 2027 is a transition, not a destination. Our resolver and dynamic QR platform are built directly on GS1 Digital Links — so the code on your pack today is already the code retail and regulators will expect tomorrow, and every scan can resolve to a Digital Product Passport.
Ready to get ahead of Sunrise 2027? We’ll walk you through the migration in an afternoon.
