ALWAYS READ THE LABELS ON THE FOODS YOU BUY--NO MATTER WHAT THE FRONT OF THE BOX OR PACKAGE SAYS, TURN IT OVER AND READ THE BACK CAREFULLY!
With all the food and pet products now coming from China, it is best to make sure you read label at the supermarket and especially when buying food products. Many products no longer show where they were made, only give where the distributor is located. The whole world is concerned about China-made "black-hearted goods".
Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or China ? The world is also concerned about GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) foods; steroid fed animals (ex: 45 days old broiler chicken).
It is important to read the bar code to track its origin.
If the first 3 digits of the bar code are 690, 691 or 692, the product is MADE IN CHINA.
471 is Made in Taiwan.
If the first 3 digits of the bar code are 00-09 then it's made or sourced in the USA.
This is our right to know, but the government and related departments never educate the public, therefore we have to RESCUE ourselves. Nowadays, Chinese businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products "MADE IN CHINA", so they don't show from which country it is made. However, you may now refer to the barcode:
If the first 3 digits are:
690, 691, 692 ... then it is MADE IN CHINA
890 ............. MADE IN INDIA
00 - 09 ........ USA and CANADA
30 - 37 ........ FRANCE
40 - 44 ........ GERMANY
471 ............ is Made in TAIWAN (see photo)
45 or 49 ....... JAPAN
489 ............ HONG KONG
50 ............. UK
57 ............. DENMARK
64 ............. FINLAND
76 ............. SWITZERLAND and LIENCHTENSTIEN
628 ............ SAUDI ARABIA
629 ............ UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
74 - 745 ....... CENTRAL AMERICA
480 ............ PHILIPPINES.
Sean - I think that this post is a little off. The 3-digit codes are GS-1 country codes that correspond to the nationality of the owner of the company, not the location of manufacture. So an Iphone would have a US country code even though it is manufactured in China or wherever. Also, the GS-1 codes only appear in EAN codes, not UPC codes, so there has to be an extra digit in the code. Still it is interesting stuff. I first was curious 30 years ago when I was a young punk working in grocery stores.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a code that started with 6 4... so naturally I thought it was made in Finland. Turned out the product was actually made in Germany.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post on bar codes. Got me interested in them so I did a little googling and there seems to be a bit of controversy on the subject. I found this link http://www.nationwidebarcode.com/barcodes-where-products-come-from/ - you might want to read this for some more bar code info. Some folks on google are claiming the info your using in the post is a bit bogus. By the way I enjoy The Birds. posted by cj gordon
ReplyDeleteAnd to make matters even more unclear, some corporations have entities specific to each of several countries. Toyota, for example, has a US corporation -- Toyota USA or to be 100% accurate, Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc -- and as most know they assemble products in the USA but using parts from around the world.
ReplyDeleteWorse, perhaps, might be ConAgra, a US corporation making a huge variety of packaged food products from mostly-US sources. I say "worse" because of their strong ($1,176,700) and successful opposition of California legislation in 2012 (Proposition 37) requiring full labeling of food containing genetically modified products.
So while "Made in the USA" sounds like a good idea, those words are being twisted in every conceivable manner imaginable to mean whatever a manufacturer, or politician, wants.
Personally, I'm thinkin' a hoe and my own private vegetable patch might be a good idea. But even then, I'll be wondering about the seeds ... ...
Thanks for the post and the comments. Something weird happened as I finished reading this. The only things on my desk that jumped out as having barcodes are the Dust Off compressed gas and the bottled water. The Dust Off, BTW, begins with "86" and the water with "75" which, I suppose, are "8" and "7" respectively so made in USA.
ReplyDeleteBut back to the weirdness. Reading this reminded me that I have the "red laser" barcode reading app on my iPhone so I reached over to pick up the phone which, when I looked at the screen, had the redlaser app ready and waiting for me to scan.
Now, while I might move my lips a bit as I read I most certainly do NOT read out loud so this could not have been Siri listening in. It was definitely an NSA mindreading app installed onto my phone that interfaced with Siri (or some other app). Very strange.
One of the best article ever seen on upc code.Love the concept and idea you presented in your article.Very helpful article.
ReplyDeleteThanks!