It is the zebra-striped tag that has become ubiquitous over the last 50 years, but the barcode’s days could be numbered. The global organisation overseeing their use has said a more powerful alternative will be readable by retailers everywhere within two years.

New codes that contain sell-by dates, product instructions, allergens and ingredients, as well as prices, will mean “we will say goodbye to the old-fashioned barcode”, according to GS1, an international non-profit that maintains the global standard for barcodes.

Tesco has started using them on some products, and other trials have suggested that waste of perishable food such as poultry can be cut by embedding sell-by dates in the new QR-style codes, allowing for more dynamic discounting.

QR (quick response) codes will allow customers to instantly access more information about the product, including how to recycle batteries, clothes and building materials when tougher environmental regulations bite.

But they will also put a greater demand on the world’s cloud computing resources, where the extra data they contain will be stored – meaning a potentially greater carbon footprint.

The first barcode was read in an Ohio supermarket in June 1974 when a packet of Juicy Fruit chewing gum was rung up. It was devised by Joe Woodland, an inventor who had been implored by a retailer frustrated at losing profits, to speed up checkout queues and stocktaking.

Coca-Cola has used the new generation of codes in parts of Latin America for refillable bottles, with the QR code allowing the counting of refills so that a requirement of 25 before recycling can be enforced. The Australian supermarket chain Woolworths is said to have reduced food waste by up to 40% in some areas, as the codes allow stores to better spot products approaching expiry and discount more efficiently.

“We’ve defined an ambition that by the end of 2027 all retailers in the world will be able to read those next-generation barcodes,” said Renaud de Barbuat, the president and chief executive of GS1. “We think it’s doable … It represents some investment on the part of retailers to adapt their point-of-sale systems, but it’s already well under way.”

Some experts believe reports of the demise of the picket fence-style barcode are premature, pointing out that there is less need for the new codes on non-food products without sell-by dates and that there is a cost to redesigning packaging.

In the UK, close to half of retailers have already upgraded their checkout technology to accommodate more multifunctional QR codes, and most of the remainder are expected to do so over the coming year, according to a survey by GS1 UK.

Anne Godfrey, the chief executive of GS1 UK, said: “This has been in the works for some time, but Covid really accelerated it. During the pandemic, everyone got used to pointing their phones at QR codes in pubs and restaurants to access the menu.”

Steven Gibbons, head of sales at Electronic Reading Systems, said: “I think that barcodes being a thing of the past is not the case yet because not everyone needs to conform [to using the new QR codes].”

Items such as candles, which do not have a sell-by date, could continue to use the old-fashioned barcodes, while perishable food could benefit from having extra data including use-by and source.

He said barcodes would also persist in warehousing and manufacturing, where they are a key part of long-established processes.

The new QR codes have the advantage of containing their information in several places in the image, which means that little crumples on packaging do not prevent them from being read by scanners. If a rumpled packet means a single bar of a picket fence-style barcode is missing, a reader is not able to register it.