Dear Mr. Rawles,
My letter today was prompted by an email I received recently about UPC codes and country of origin. It stated that one can determine the country of manufacturing origin by looking at the first three digits of the Bar code. More specifically, it stated that bar codes beginning with the digits 690 through 695 are from China while those with 471 are from Taiwan. Products with codes from 00 to 13 are from the U.S. and Canada. This seemed like a handy way to tell which products came from where. You could buy a product with some assurance that it was made in the US. The truth of the matter is somewhat more complicated. An example of the e-mail I received can be seen in this link.
What are those little lines? First you must understand that there are two primary barcode systems, the Universal Product Code (UPC) which is used in North America, and the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and the International Article Number (EAN)–formerly called an European Article Number–which is used in most other places on the globe. Whereas the UPC uses 12 digits, the EAN uses 13. However, the UPC can be read as EAN because you would just put a “0” in front of the UPC to convert it. All the numbers encoded in UPC and EAN barcodes are known as Global Trade Item Numbers (GTIN). The first three numbers of the GTIN represent the country in which the manufacturer is registered. Please note that this does not mean that the product was made in that country. For instance if a company called “Swiss Guns” is registered in China then it will carry a prefix of 690-695. If however the guns were manufactured in Bulgaria the code would still be 690-695 and not 380. You can find the complete Wikipedia listing of country codes.
Is there a way to get more information about a product from the bar code? I found this web site to provide additional information. The web site is GS1 who on their web page self-describe as “GS1 is an international not-for-profit association with Member Organisations in over 100 countries. GS1 is dedicated to the design and implementation of global standards and solutions to improve the efficiency and visibility of supply and demand chains globally and across sectors. The GS1 system of standards is the most widely used supply chain standards system in the world.” GS1 is the body that creates the standards defining the GTIN.
They have a tool that will provide information based on the GTIN code. For example, I entered the following code for my Newman’s Special Decaf Keurig: 099555080513 and it told me that the company was:
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc.
VT
33 Coffee Lane05676
Waterbury
United States
It also included phone numbers to the company.
Please note that it does not indicate the country of origin. The box indicates that the product is packaged, made and printed in the USA. Some searching on the GreenMountainCoffee.com web site reveals that this coffee probably originated in Guatemala. They write, “In 2003, Nell Newman traveled with us to Guatemala to meet coffee farmers in person.”
The takeaway: You will need to do more than look at the UPC/EAN/ETIN code to determine the country of origin of a product and this is especially so for products grown in one country but processed in another.
Thanks as always for your hard work on Survivalblog and may the Lord bless and keep you.
Respectfully, – Mr. Bennington in Pittsburgh