WHILE retailers rely on product barcodes for inventory purposes, consumers should not be using the first few numbers of the codes to identify a product's origin.

These numbers do not indicate the country in which a product is made, contrary to an e-mail which has been circulating over the past week.

The e-mail contains a list of the assigned European Article Number (EAN)-13 barcode prefixes for about 90 countries.

It said China and Taiwan products can be differentiated by the first three numbers of their 13-digit barcodes.

The EAN-13 barcode is defined by global standards organisation GS1, which administers barcodes for retail goods in about 140 member countries.

China's assigned prefixes are 690, 691 and 692, while Taiwan's is 471, said the e-mail. It went on to exhort consumers to avoid foodstuffs with Chinaassigned barcodes, citing recent tainted-product scandals.

To date, melamine-tainted milk has killed four children and made 53,000 sick in China. A check on the GS1 website showed that the country codes listed in the e-mail are accurate.

Singapore's prefix is 888. However, these prefixes "do not provide identification of country of origin for a given product", the website said.

It added that the prefixes indicate only the locations from which companies apply for the barcode. A spokesman for the GS1 office in Singapore told my paper: "Any company that registers its barcode in Singapore, for example, will carry a barcode that starts with the prefix '888', even if its factory is in another part of the world."

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority said it does not have any regulation pertaining to barcodes on food packaging.

rachchan@sph.com.sg

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