With the recent scandals regarding falsely labeled foodstuffs being sold in the UK (also include GMO foods and steroid fed animals), is there anyway of checking what you buy? The simple answer is NO. Many products no longer even show where they were made, only give where the distributor is located. DEFRA (http://www.defra.gov.uk/) has been shown to be inaffective and a waste of tax payers money – so if you care about what you feed yourself and your kids then you gotta police it yourself and be a bit more choosy about what you eat.

To start with only a very small amount of the food on the shelves originates in this country – over 90% of it comes from abroad so here is how to tell where the stuff was, at least, finally packaged:

So what you are looking for are the first three numbers on any bar code i.e. first 2-3 numbers from the left side

890……MADE IN INDIA
690, 691, 692 … then it is MADE IN CHINA
00 – 09 … USA and CANADA – how come they do not have separate codes?
30 – 37 … FRANCE
40 – 44 … GERMANY
471……… TAIWAN
45 or 49 ……..JAPAN
489………..HONG KONG
50 ………. UK
57 ………DENMARK
64……….FINLAND
76………SWITZERLAND and LIENCHTENSTIEN
628………SAUDI ARABIA
629………UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
740 – 745 … CENTRAL AMERICA

I wonder who got 666?