UPC Codes Show Country Of Origin

With all the tainted products being imported these days, its hard to trust out of country products. Often times in recent memory, Chinese products have been the focus of many of these investigations as manufacturing standards and laws are simply out of date. With so many problems, Americans have begun looking elsewhere for some products.

A few of these tainted products in recent memory have been mercury in children’s toys, children’s foods containing chemicals, paints with lead or other harmful chemicals, automobile parts and phony electronics… to name just a few.

Now, what if there was a way that by simply looking on the back of a product you could tell the country of origin? On older products, there used to be a mark somewhere that would indicate “Made In China” or “Made In Taiwan”, however Chinese companies have noticed that the average American consumer has recently had a declining demand for asian-made products, and so they have stopped placing these markings accordingly.

One way to help determine a products country of origin has been found, and it is all related to the barcode label or UPC code. On any product, the prefix to the barcode, those little black lines that the cashier scans, can reveal the answer.

For example, an American or Canadian based company will have a barcode prefix of 0-9, while a possible competing Asian based company’s products would have a barcode label prefix of  690 – 699 Per GS1.

Although these barcode prefixes do tell you what country a company is located, even if that company is located in China, they might still manufacture from anywhere around the world. This means that all that the barcode prefix can tell you is origin of the company, not point of manufacture.

For the entire list of barcode prefixes, please visit GS1 US’s official website, and stay alert with where the products in your house are from.

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Comments

  1. Pqul Keating

    If the manufacturer can lie about the country of origin then that means UPC codes are useless as far as consumers are concerned

  2. Darleen Shriver

    I would like to know what the bar code for Atlantic Salmon – company name C.Wirthy, comes from! The bar code is 665 if you start w’ the first 6 being before the bar code w’ the numbers to follow after the bar code 656! So the number is either 665 or 656. China’s numbers are 690,691.692,284!!
    Any information would be appreciated as I don’t want anything from China.
    Thank you,
    Darleen

  3. David Rawson

    The code shows where the company applied for UPC code to be used on product and not necessarily where it is actually manufactured. A company in Taiwan may be purchasing a product from Mexico to export for distribution in US. If they apply for code it will have Taiwan prefix, if the use original from manufacturer it will have Mexico or their US division may may get one, then it will US. UPS code is for pricing and inventory. Made in “country” label still the best but even that may still only show last country a manufacturing step was accomplished where the product was considered complete.

  4. Eldon Huey

    Bought something recently that was marked “made in China’, the numbers did’nt match the China designation (690 series), was marked “284”. Have they found a way to get around UPC standards?

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