Aquatics livestock wholesaler Quality Marine is making information on their livestock quite a bit easier to obtain with the inclusion of QR (Quick Response) codes on labels shipped with every fish purchased from them. With these labels, fish store employees can scan the code with a smart phone and instantly find out where the animal originated, what it eats, if it’s aggressive, and even when it arrived at and left from the Quality Marine facility. Having this information at our fingertips is extremely helpful in providing the proper care to each fish, coral, and invertebrate. It also helps fish stores pass on that knowledge to customers, allowing the animal to receive the long term specialized care it needs in order to not only survive, but thrive.
So what is QR and why has it become so popular? The Quick Response code is essentially a two dimensional bar code that can encoded with any kind of information. This design was first developed by a subsidiary company of Toyota in an attempt to track vehicles during he production process, and has since become quite popular here in the US. To view the information within the code, one must simply scan the image with a smart phone equipped with a QR reading app. Once scanned, the information often leads to a page of information that can include just about any aspect the creator of the code has made available (in this case things like proper husbandry techniques for fish).
While this idea is not a new one, it’s the first time we’ve seen it used to relay information about a fish to a customer, and it’s one that we applaud and encourage other wholesalers and retailers to use. We’d love to see these labels at the local fish store, where the information can be easily obtained by potential customers looking for their next livestock purchase.
