London's e-centre this week celebrated 25 years of the barcode with the launch of an industry-approved guide.

The document, entitled Bar coding: getting it right, aims to put right errors made along the supply chain that render barcodes useless and cost the retail industry between £500 million and £1 billion every year.

Tesco's Paul Nutter highlighted some of the problems that can occur, including folded packaging and inconsistent location on product that can slow down queues and cause embarrassment for cashier and customer.

And Nutter revealed that poor barcoding could cost manufacturers more than they may have bargained for.

He said: 'There is a piece of research that shows that customers will switch brands if a product does not scan.' The informative piece of literature has been complied with the help of some of the industry's biggest companies, including Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose.

It was written on how to use the technology that exists today, but the later part of the event was devoted to new developments in the industry.

Of particular interest to the fresh produce industry is the introduction of reduced space symbology (RSS) coding on loose fruit, which unlike the current 4-digit codes will contain vital information such as country of origin and make traceability in the supply chain more fool- and fraud-proof.

Masterfoods supply chain consultant Walter Satterthwaite explained that the recent controversy surrounding the movement of English cows to Scotland in the last ninety days of their lives - in order to claim the beef as Scottish rather than English and fool the buying public - could be all but avoided.

He said that he had seen South African fruit being stamped with other countries of origin during sanctions, and that RSS would all but eliminate this.

He added that while fraud could never be beaten completely, RSS would make it much harder.

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