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Miscellaneous See other Miscellaneous Articles Title: Do the Barcodes on Products Reveal the Country of Origin? There's an e-mail alert circulating on the Internet that claims you can tell a food product's country of origin by looking at the first three numbers of the bar code. For example, the alert says that all barcodes ranging from 690 to 695 indicate products made in China and that barcodes beginning with 471 indicate products made in Taiwan. Given the concern over food made in China these days, this e-mail is quickly making its rounds on the Internet, so I decided to check it out. Unfortunately, it turns out that finding out a food product's country of origin is not as simple as the e-mail alert claims. According to Snopes, the first three digits of the barcode merely indicate in which country the barcode was assigned, not in which country the product was produced. So, for example, a company that is based in Switzerland but has a manufacturing plant in China would have a Swiss barcode. It's becoming increasingly difficult to figure out where our food comes from, as Sara Bongiorni, author of "A Year Without Made in China," found out when she tried to eliminate all Chinese products from her family's shopping list for one year. A CNN article about her experiment states: The United States requires labels on seafood to mark where it came from. However, that's the exception. With most foods, companies are not required to label where ingredients come from, only where the food was packaged or processed. That means it is possible a frozen dinner, for example, could have 20 different ingredients from 20 different countries, food analysts say. So how about you? Are you trying to avoid food from China or is it so difficult to do so that you don't even try? Comments 2. kafirlily This is the list that was in the email that I received: However, you may now refer to the barcode, remember if the first 3 digits is 690-695 then it is Made in China . 00 ~ 13 USA & CANADA 30 ~ 37 FRANCE 40 ~ 44 GERMANY 49 ~ JAPAN 50 ~ UK 57 ~ Denmark 64 ~ Finland 76 ~ Switzerland and Lienchtenstein 628 ~ Saudi-Arabien 629 ~ United Arab Emirates 740 ~ 745 - Central America All 480 Codes are Made in the Philippines. 8. Alvie said on December 18, 2009: THis is not true about the UPC code. The country code states where the UPC code was generated and that comes from the US UPC Council. So example I have a company here in the US and I have a product being manufactured in China. I apply for the UPC code here in the US. The code shows that it was generated in the US but really the product is manufactured in China. You would never ever know. I know this becaused I have been involved in product development here in the US. Remember, it indicates the country that issued the code, NOT THE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN OF THE PRODUCT 9. Charles said on January 17, 2010: Alvie is right. I have 2 (just for starters) products that clearly state on the package Made in/Product of China with the so-called US/Canada digits. Looks like we're back a square one again. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
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