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  • 2008-10-27 (xsd:date)
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  • Can You Determine a Product's Country of Origin by Its Bar Code? (en)
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  • 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 in the U.S. understandably became more apprehensive about the places of origin of the products they were purchasing. However, consumers often found themselves frustrated in their efforts to be more selective buyers because many products are not labeled in ways that clearly indicate their point of origin. A popular online item of the time was a reflection of those fears, a message that purportedly provided 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 for American consumers isn't quite as cut and dried as it's been made to sound here. First of all, the two- or three-digit country codes referenced above are incorporated into the European Article Number (EAN-13) bar code standard, but not into the UPC-A bar code which is most commonly used in the U.S. Moreover, what those EAN-13 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 was made: For example, if a Mexican company imported fruit from Guatemala, then packed and shipped that fruit to Belgium, the country code portion of the final product's bar code would likely indicate an origin of Mexico rather than Guatemala. In that case the bar coding would be of little help to consumers who (for whatever reason) were desirous of avoiding food products grown in 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 often still have to rely on the standard method of looking for Made in [country name] labels on the packaging. (en)
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