Is the Same UPC Always the Same Product?

Something new came up in my sourcing and I want to dedicate this week’s article to it. There’s an assumption most of us run on without thinking about it:

same UPC = exact same product

Is that assumption always right? Well I came across an example where the UPC stayed the same, but customers were treating the new version as if it were a different product entirely.

I want to walk through what I found because it’s something you should be aware of. A brand can redesign packaging, drop a featured ingredient callout from the front of the label, and keep the same UPC. From the brand’s system, nothing changed. From a customer’s perspective, the product they used to buy is gone.