Recession Hits Hand-Made Barcoders Hard

Wall Street may have bounced back from its lows in the fall of 2008, but for businesses on Main Street economic survival is still a challenge. Perhaps no sector has been quite as devastated as that of hand-made barcoding.

Thomas & Sons Barcoding in Viola, Wisconsin (pop: 667) has been producing hand-made barcodes for almost 90 years. Thomas Francis Thomas bought his first ruler and pencil in April 1921. Three months later he took out his life’s saving from the bank, dropped out of Kickapoo High School and set up shop in downtown Viola.

It wasn’t easy. But with steadfast attention to detail and an unwavering devotion to drawing straight lines, Thomas saw his business grow into becoming one of the leaders of hand-made barcoding in the country.

Thomas’s grandson, Thomas Francis Thomas III, 71, has been running the shop for the past 35 years. He takes great pride in not only having passed down his knowledge of hand-made barcoding to both his son and his grandson but in overseeing one of only a handful of hand-made barcoding businesses that remain.

“A lot kids starting out in the business can’t even make a straight line,” says Thomas. “Grandpa always said, if you can’t draw a straight line, then you had no right being in the barcoding business.”

“Forty years ago, every town in the country had its own barcoder who worked by hand. The switch to automation wiped out a lot of people in the trade,” Thomas recounts. “And then the recession came along. You could say this was a double whammy.”

Fierce competition from Asia has also played a role in the demise of America’s once-thriving hand-made barcoding industry. Factories in China are now able to churn out millions of barcodes a day, whereas a hand-made barcoder in America might produce five or (on a good day) six.

“I hate being the one to have to tell my kids and grandkids there’s no future in hand-made barcoding. The only other thing they are really qualified to do is write make-believe articles for websites. They aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed,” rues Thomas.