Country of Origin

SOURCE: Eleanor Snyder (mehitibel@gmail.com) from widely distributed email.
SUBHEAD: Bar codes indicate where products originate. If you want to buy locally manufactured products learn the code.  
Image above: Typical packaging barcode with country of origin prefix high-lighted.

The whole world is afraid of China-made "black hearted goods". Knowledge of product bar code data may be useful to know when shopping, if it's a concern to you. Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or China ? If the first 3 digits of the barcode are 690, 691 or 692, the product is manufactured in China. The prefix 471 indicates it is made in Taiwan. 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, remember if the first 3 digits are: 690-692 … then it is MADE IN CHINA . 00 - 09 … USA & CANADA 30 - 37 … FRANCE 40 - 44 … GERMANY 47 ... Taiwan 49 … JAPAN 50 … UK You can buy American manufactured goods by watching for "0" at the beginning of the number.

SUBHEAD: Email on barcodes is a mixture of true and false information.  

Country Code Correction
(http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/barcodes.asp)

In the wake of 2008 product scares involving melamine-tainted pet foods, lead-tainted toys, and melamine-tainted milk products, all originating in China, consumers have understandably become more apprehensive about the places of origin of the products they buy. The item reproduced above is a reflection of those fears, a message that purportedly provides simple, helpful instructions for determining the country of origin of any product. According to this tip, a glance at the first three digits of a product's bar code will tell you where it was made. Unfortunately, determination of product origins isn't quite as cut and dried as it's been made to sound here. The UPC-A bar code and its cousin, the European Article Number (EAN) bar code, incorporate two- or three-digit country codes, but what those country codes indicate is the country or economic region where a particular bar code was assigned, not necessarily the country where the product identified by that bar code originated:
Q: Does the EAN number indicate the country of origin of a product? A: No it doesn't. The 3-digit prefix code indicates which numbering organization has allocated the bank of numbers to the company. For example, a company may have its headquarters in South Africa. The EAN organization in South Africa has the code "600," but all the products of the company may be manufactured in England. The English-made products would still have the "600" prefix code. The prefix code is a way to have 70-plus EAN member organizations issuing numbers without having to worry about duplicate numbers.
For example, if a Mexican company imported fruit from Guatemala, then packed and shipped that fruit to the United States, the country code portion of the final product's bar code would likely indicate an origin of Mexico rather than Guatemala. It may be the case that in some parts of the world there is a fair degree of correlation between assignment of bar codes and product origins (i.e., in some countries the preponderance of bar code assignments may apply to domestic products), but for surefire product origin identification consumers must rely upon other methods. In determining the country of origin of a product sold in the U.S., consumers should still look for "Made in [country name]" labels on the packaging.

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