You may see great deals on food, but if the origin of the food is China, then that deal is really not that great after all. And possibly not that healthy. China, Taiwan and other countries don’t have the same strict processing standards that the U.S. has. So that jar of minced garlic from the dollar store that originates from China could have been processed by potentially dangerous means and contain things that wouldn’t be allowed in the U.S. Definitely not worth the risk.
There are meats and other produce that are out there in stores that can’t be identified as easy as far as where they came from. It turns out that you can actually find out their origin by doing a little detective work. If you examine the UPC barcode on the product, you can cross reference that with a chart identifying the country of origin.
Here’s how to read the code in order to find out where your food is coming from.
Basically, it is the first three numerals in the barcode which are the ones you want to pay attention to.
Once you find the UPC barcode and identify those first three numbers, you will want to compare it to the chart. The major food manufacturers in the world are listed here, and the codes for each, and their location, are associated.
Look at the chart below…
00 ~ 13 USA and Canada
690 ~ 695 China
30 ~ 37 France
40 ~ 44 Germany
49 ~ Japan
50 ~ UK
57 ~ Denmark
64 ~ Finland
76 ~ Switzerland and Liechtenstein
471 ~ Taiwan
480 ~ Philippines
628 ~ Saudi-Arabian
629 ~ United Arab Emirates
740 ~ 745 Central America
