Do you know that in the absence of a package label stating what country a particular product was made in, you could always consult the product’s package barcode to determine this missing piece of important information?

A popular quip has it that “In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth; and everything else was made in China”.

Quite funny but true. I really don’t have to move an inch just to prove it. My laptop was made in China. And so does the chair that I’m sitting in right now. The ramen noodles that I ate for breakfast was also made in China. Even the underwear I’m wearing was manufactured in China!

Chinese products here, there, and everywhere. Yes I know that without them, I would have otherwise had to spend at least PhP250 for this 50 pesos shorts I’m wearing right now have I not bought it from a made in china flea shop in Subic. China have definitely made this world a cheaper place to live in. But at a huge cost.

Last year, China made it to the world headlines a number of times courtesy of their substandard and contaminated products. Products ranging from lead-painted toys, toxic toothpaste, chemical-laden seafood, unsafe tires, and counterfeited medicines among others were have to be recalled because of the risks they pose to their consumer’s health and welfare.

And this year, China have once again proved to the world that its really a headline superstar when it comes to unsafe products, thanks to its Melamine tainted milk that have already killed a number of babies and hospitalized thousands more.

I’m sure many of you would want to avoid made in China milks for fear of melamine contamination. And knowing the strings of product-safety related issues Chinese consumer goods have been through, you are probably more paranoid now about the products that you buy at the supermarket, counter checking the country where they were produced (like making sure that that choco chip cookie was not made from China).

But have you noticed how many products don’t have packaging labels stating what country they’re made from? I’m not sure if this practice is intentionally done by nasty manufacturers trying to hide something. But its really quite disappointing to find out, after looking at all sides of that box of cookie, that there’s no Manufactured from label.

The answer is not in the box, its in the barcode

This is actually a very easy step to do. By simply looking at the barcode and checking the first 3 digits, you would know a product’s point of origin.

Products made from China begins at numbers 690 - 695.

Meanwhile, products made from the Philippines meanwhile starts at 480.

Below is a complete list of the different Universal Product Code prefix numbers assigned for different countries.

EAN•UCC Prefixes	Country	ISO country code
00 to 13	UCC (USA & Canada)	us/ca
20 to 29	In-store numbers
30 to 37	GENCOD-EAN France	fr
380	BCCI (Bulgaria)	bg
383	EAN Slovenija	si
385	EAN Croatia	hr
387	EAN-BIH (Bosnia-Herzegovina)	ba
400 to 440	CCG (Germany)	de
45 + 49	Distribution Code Center DCC (Japan)	jp
460 to 469	UNISCAN - EAN Russia (Russian Federation)	ru
471	EAN Taiwan	tw
474	EAN Estonia	ee
475	EAN Latvia	lv
476	EAN Azerbaijan	az
477	EAN Lithuania	lt
478	EAN Uzbekistan	uz
479	EAN Sri Lanka	lk
480	PANC (Philippines)	ph
481	EAN Belarus	by
482	EAN Ukraine	ua
484	EAN Moldova	md
485	EAN Armenia	am
486	EAN Georgia	ge
487	EAN Kazakhstan	kz
489	HKANA (Hong-Kong)	hk
50	e.centre	gb
520	EAN HELLAS (Greece)	gr
528	EAN Lebanon	lb
529	EAN Cyprus	cy
531	EAN-MAC (FYR Macedonia)	mk
535	EAN Malta	mt
539	EAN Ireland	ie
54	EAN Belgium.Luxembourg	be/lu
560	CODIPOR (Portugal)	pt
569	EAN Iceland	is
57	EAN Danmark	dk
590	EAN Poland	pl
594	EAN Romania	ro
599	EAN Hungary	hu
600 - 601	EAN South Africa	za
608	EAN Bahrain	bh 048
609	EAN Mauritius	mu
611	EAN Maroc (Morocco)	ma
613	EAN Algerie (Algeria)	dz
616	EAN Kenya	ke
619	Tunicode (Tunisia)	tn
621	EAN Syria	sy
622	EAN Egypt	eg
624	EAN Libya	ly
625	EAN Jordan	jo
626	EAN Iran	ir
627	EAN Kuwait	kw
628	EAN Saudi Arabia	sa
629	EAN Emirates	ae
64	EAN Finland	fi
690 - 695	Article Numbering Centre of China - ANCC	cn
70	EAN Norge (Norway)	no
729	Israeli Bar Code Association - EAN Israel	il
73	EAN Sweden	se
740	EAN Guatemala	gt
741	EAN El Salvador	sv
742	EAN Honduras	hn
743	EAN Nicaragua	ni
744	EAN Costa Rica	cr
745	EAN Panama	pa
746	EAN Republica Dominicana	do
750	AMECE (Mexico)	mx
759	EAN Venezuela	ve
76	EAN Switzerland	ch
770	IAC (Colombia)	co
773	EAN Uruguay	uy
775	EAN Peru	pe
777	EAN Bolivia	bo
779	CODIGO - EAN Argentina	ar
780	EAN Chile	cl
784	EAN Paraguay	py
786	ECOP (Ecuador)	ec
789 - 790	EAN Brasil	br
80 to 83	INDICOD (Italy)	it
84	AECOC (Spain)	es
850	Camera de Comercio de la Republica de Cuba	cu
858	EAN Slovakia	sk
859	EAN Czech	cz
860	EAN YU (Yugoslavia)	yu
867	EAN DPR Korea (North Korea)	kp
869	UCCET (Turkey)	tr
87	EAN Nederland	nl
880	EAN Korea (South Korea)	kr
885	EAN Thailand	th
888	SANC (Singapore)	sg
890	EAN India	in
893	EAN Vietnam	vn
899	EAN Indonesia	id
90 - 91	EAN Austria	at
93	EAN Australia	au
94	EAN New Zealand	nz
955	EAN Malaysia	my
958	EAN Macau	mo
977	Periodicals (ISSN)
978 - 979	Books (ISBN)
980	Refund receipts
981 - 982	Common currency coupons
99	Coupons