First item purchased using barcode was a chewing gum
The first time barcode was used for a purchase was for a package of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum  at Marsh Supermarket in Ohio, US in 1974. The bar codes are scanned over 5 billion times every day across the world for easy sorting, pricing, and checking-out. Notably, the co-inventor of barcode Norman Joseph Woodland was born on September 6, 1921.​