Sunrise 2027 for small brands
What changes on your packaging, what it costs, and what to do this year. Written for founders with a handful of products, not a supply chain team. 421 days to go.
The short version
What Sunrise 2027 is
Sunrise 2027 is GS1's target for retail checkouts in the US to read 2D barcodes, such as a QR code or a Data Matrix, as well as the old striped UPC. It is an industry goal, not a law, but large retailers are building their scanners around it.
The 2D code can hold far more than a product number. A GS1 Digital Link QR holds your GTIN inside a web address, so the same square can ring up at the register and open a page on a shopper's phone.
What you need before you start
A real GTIN from GS1. In the US a single GTIN costs $30 once, and a 10-product company prefix is $250 plus $50 a year. Barcodes resold on marketplaces are registered to somebody else, and retailers that check the GS1 registry will turn them down.
Someone to host the link. The QR points at a web address. That address has to keep answering for as long as your product can be on a shelf or in a pantry, which for most packaged goods means years.
How to put it on the box
Keep your existing UPC or EAN. Most lanes still use laser scanners that cannot read a 2D code, so for now you print both.
Place the QR close to the linear barcode. GS1's guidance for the transition is within 50 mm.
Print it big enough. For QR codes scanned at retail, GS1 sets the module size (the size of one small square) between 0.396 mm and 0.990 mm, with 0.495 mm as the target. Leave a clear margin of four modules on every side.
Print a proof and scan it with two or three different phones before the full run.
What to send people to
At minimum, a product page. Many brands also add ingredients, allergens, instructions or a way to register the product. With GS1 Digital Link each of these has a standard name, so apps and retailers know which link is which.
If you sell in more than one country, you can send each country to its own page from the same printed code.
Why lot codes matter
If you add the lot or batch number to the QR, every batch gets its own code. When something goes wrong with one batch, you can show a recall notice to people holding that batch only, and leave everyone else alone.
This is the same kind of lot-level tracing the FDA's food traceability rule asks food companies to keep records for.