GS1 QR codes and DataMatrix for Kenyan products
How a Kenyan producer or shop gets GS1 barcodes, when a GS1 QR code or DataMatrix with an expiry date helps, and what Achekam's till reads today.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Retail businesses in Kenya
A honey producer in Baringo wants to move from selling at markets to supplying supermarkets in Nairobi. The first question the buyer asks is not about price or taste. It is whether the jars carry a proper barcode. The second, a few months later, is whether the label can also show the batch and the best-before date in a form the supermarket's systems can read.
Barcodes look like a printing detail. For a Kenyan producer or a shop that packs its own products, they are the passport into modern retail, and the newer two-dimensional codes can carry far more than a product number. This article explains how to get GS1 barcodes in Kenya, what the different codes can hold, and how Achekam's till works with them today.
Barcodes come through GS1 Kenya membership
GS1 Kenya describes itself as a not-for-profit organisation that supports the adoption of GS1 standards across all industries in the supply chain, to improve traceability and data management. It states that a business whose products need barcodes gets them by becoming a GS1 Kenya member.
That is the legitimate route. Numbers bought from unofficial resellers, or copied from another product, can cause trouble when a retailer checks them. A sensible order of work:
- Apply for GS1 Kenya membership in the name of the business that owns the brand.
- Allocate a product number to each distinct product: every flavour, size and pack.
- Record those numbers in your own product list before designing any label.
- Brief the label designer with the numbers and the barcode type to print.
GS1 Kenya's website explains its barcode, traceability and retail data services for local companies, and is the place to start the membership application.
Linear barcodes and 2D codes
GS1 explains that barcodes encode key identifiers, such as product, shipment and location, and key attributes, such as serial numbers, batch or lot numbers and dates. The familiar striped barcode on a supermarket product carries the product number and little else.
Two-dimensional codes are different. GS1 explains that 2D barcodes use patterns of squares, hexagons, dots and other shapes, so they can hold more data than one-dimensional barcodes while appearing physically smaller. That matters on small packs, where label space is tight.
| Linear (1D) barcode | 2D code | |
|---|---|---|
| Looks like | Vertical bars | Squares, dots or other shapes |
| Typically carries | The product number | The product number plus extra data |
| Space needed | More | Less, for the same data |
QR codes and DataMatrix that carry expiry dates
GS1 Kenya states that GS1 has standards for five 2D barcodes. The two most widely recognised are the QR Code, using the GS1 Digital Link format, and the GS1 DataMatrix. Both can store the product's GTIN plus information such as an expiry date or a serial number.
When is that worth the extra effort?
- Perishable goods, such as honey, dairy, baked goods or juices, where a retailer wants to know which batch and which best-before date is on the shelf.
- Products that may need a recall, where a batch or serial number lets the producer identify exactly which units are affected.
- Higher-value items, where a serial number helps track individual units and spot counterfeits.
- Products that link to more information, where a GS1 Digital Link QR code can serve both the retailer's systems and a customer's phone.
For a simple product with a long shelf life, a standard linear barcode may be all a retailer needs. Ask your main buyers what they expect before redesigning labels.
Checking the code before the labels are printed
A barcode that does not scan is worse than none, because it fails at the retailer's receiving bay or at the till in front of a queue. GS1 Kenya offers barcode verification to ensure barcode quality, compliance and global readability.
Use it before committing to a large label print run, and again whenever the label size, material or printer changes. Glossy surfaces, curved jars and small print sizes can all produce codes that look fine to the eye and still fail on a scanner.
What Achekam's till reads today
A business registered as Kenyan at sign-up gets the Kenya pack as its default, and on activation its workspace uses the shilling (KES) and the Africa/Nairobi time zone unless already set. Products are kept in the Item Master in the Accounting menu, which lists and creates products on the server with an SKU, name, category, selling and cost price, opening quantity and VAT treatment. The Item Master needs the Point of Sale, Warehousing or Wholesale add-on.
There is a limitation to plan around. No screen lets a business record a product's barcode as a separate field, so a scanner at the till finds a product only when the scanned code matches its SKU. In practice:
- a shop that wants its scanner to work with a linear GS1 barcode can make each product's SKU the same as the number in the barcode;
- a 2D code that carries more than the product number, such as an expiry date or serial number, sends more than the SKU to the till, so it will not find the product unless the scanned value matches the SKU exactly;
- the till simply compares a scan with SKUs, so expiry dates and serial numbers inside a 2D code are not recorded at the till.
A 2D code on your packaging can still serve retailers whose systems read it; the limitation affects scanning in your own shop. Designing SKUs that work alongside barcodes is covered in designing SKU codes, and a parts-heavy example is in parts stock, SKUs and barcodes.
Start with the membership application, list every product variant you sell, and ask your two biggest buyers whether they want a linear barcode, a 2D code, or both on the next print run.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
