CHARLOTTE, NC – SATO, a pioneer in the Automatic Identification and Data Collection (AIDC) industry and a leader in barcode printing, labeling, and EPC/RFID solutions, announced today that SATO printers and OEM print engines (excluding the CX Series printers) currently support the GS1 Composite Symbology – GS1 DataBar.

GS1 DataBar permits marking on small, hard to mark items like loose produce and can provide new barcode information such as weight, price, or data codes. With wide scale implementation within North American groceries, pilot programs in Europe and Asia, and current use on loose produce shipping throughout the world, represents a new capability at retail point-of-sale (POS).

The benefits of GS1 DataBar now and in the future will have a global impact. GS1 DataBar will encode GTIN providing brand identification, shrink management, category management, and reduced out-of-stocks for loose produce items. And with the capability of adding information such as weight and lot number, GS1 DataBar will enable traceability of loose produce.

GS1 DataBar will also be ideal for use on products that are too small to carry a full size EAN/UPC such as jewelry and hardware products, as well as for fresh variable measure products. It will provide manufacturers with more space on their packages to include more information about their products. By 2014, the goal of GS1 is to enable GS1 DataBar to be used globally in open trade on any appropriate products.

“SATO has been following the progress of GS1 DataBar and will continue to do so as its development progresses,” said Gary Krause, director of marketing at SATO America. “We have already developed and added the necessary firmware into all of our world class printers because SATO, our partners, and our customers all believe that GS1 DataBar will be a globally significant barcode symbology moving forward.”

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