Retail EDIFACT — NorgesGruppen, Coop, Rema 1000 and GS1
Long before the e-invoice, grocery retail already exchanged orders and deliveries by EDI. For newcomers: EDIFACT is the legacy "language" of business-to-business commerce, and EANCOM is its retail dialect defined by GS1. In Norway the grocery chains — NorgesGruppen, Coop, Rema 1000, Bunnpris — run their supply chains on EANCOM, now paired with EHF/PEPPOL for the invoice leg.
History — from the barcode to EANCOM + EHF
Norwegian retail adopted the EAN/GTIN barcode and EDI from the 1980s-90s. EANCOM 2002, GS1's EDIFACT subset, became the standard for orders and logistics. As EHF arrived (2012), the chains began receiving PEPPOL invoices without dropping EANCOM for the goods flow. Hence today's mixed architecture: EANCOM to order and deliver, EHF to invoice.
1980s-90s | Adoption of the EAN/GTIN barcode and EDI in Norwegian retail.
| GS1 Norway (then EAN Norge) rolls out EANCOM.
|
2000s | EANCOM 2002 (the EDIFACT subset) becomes the de facto
| standard for ORDERS, DESADV and INVOIC between chains and
| suppliers.
|
2012 | EHF B2G arrives; large retailers start to also receive
| EHF/PEPPOL invoices.
|
2015-2020 | Coexistence: orders and logistics in EANCOM, invoices
| increasingly in EHF. GS1 GLN for logistics routing.
|
2024-2026 | Mixed architecture stabilised: EANCOM for the goods flow,
| EHF/PEPPOL for the financial flow.Governance — GS1 Norway
GS1 Norway (formerly EAN Norge) is the national GS1 organisation: it assigns GS1 prefixes, manages GLNs (Global Location Number) and GTINs, and publishes EANCOM implementation guides for the Norwegian market. The chains then define their own integration profiles (EANCOM subsets) with their suppliers.
Technical schema — EANCOM ORDERS / DESADV / INVOIC
A typical replenishment cycle combines several EANCOM messages:
- ORDERS — the order, identifying the buyer (NAD+BY), the supplier (NAD+SU) and the delivery point (NAD+DP) by GLN, and the articles by GTIN.
- DESADV — the despatch advice, detailing parcels, pallets (SSCC) and contents.
- RECADV — the receipt acknowledgement on the warehouse side.
- INVOIC — the EANCOM invoice, increasingly replaced by EHF/PEPPOL.
UNB+UNOC:3+7080001234567:14+7080007654321:14+260616:1014+NG-4211'
UNH+1+ORDERS:D:01B:UN:EAN010'
BGM+220+NG-2026-04211+9'
DTM+137:20260616:102'
NAD+BY+7080001234567::9' ' buyer (NorgesGruppen GLN)
NAD+SU+7080007654321::9' ' supplier (GLN)
NAD+DP+7080009999999::9' ' delivery point (warehouse GLN)
LIN+1++7012345678905:EN' ' article GTIN
QTY+21:480' ' ordered quantity
PRI+AAA:24.50' ' net price
UNS+S'
CNT+2:1'
UNT+12+1'
UNZ+1+NG-4211'EANCOM vs EHF in retail
| Dimension | EANCOM 2002 | EHF 3.0 / PEPPOL |
|---|---|---|
| Syntax | EDIFACT (segments) | UBL 2.1 (XML) |
| Scope | Order + logistics + invoice | Invoice (+ PEPPOL post-award) |
| Location identifier | GLN | org.nr (ICD 0192) |
| Article | GTIN | GTIN / classification |
| Transport | VAN / AS2 / SFTP | PEPPOL (AS4) |
| NO usage | Goods flow | Financial flow |
Adoption — the grocery oligopoly
- NorgesGruppen — the largest group (Kiwi, Meny, Spar, Joker, ASKO for logistics), runs EANCOM at scale.
- Coop Norge — cooperative (Coop Extra, Coop Mega, Obs), strong supplier EDI integration.
- Rema 1000 — discounter (Reitan group), highly standardised supply chain.
- Bunnpris and others — round out a concentrated market where EDI is a supplier prerequisite.
Common pitfalls
- Confusing GLN and org.nr. The GLN identifies a location/partner in EANCOM; the org.nr identifies the legal entity in EHF. The mapping is essential.
- Per-chain profiles. Each retailer has its own EANCOM subset (mandatory segments, qualifiers). A generic message is often rejected.
- Mixing flows. Sending an EANCOM INVOIC when the chain expects an EHF invoice (or vice versa) blocks processing.
- Malformed SSCC. In DESADV, an invalid pallet identifier (SSCC) breaks logistics matching.
- EDIFACT encoding. The character set (UNOC) must handle æ, ø, å; a wrong setting corrupts labels.