There is a claim about barcodes that circulates every few years, usually attached to a call to boycott something: the first digits tell you which country a product was made in. Scan a jar, read the prefix, learn the origin.
It is wrong, and the organisation that issues the numbers says so directly:
Since GS1 user companies can manufacture products anywhere in the world, GS1
Prefixes do not identify the country of origin for a given product.
What the prefix actually identifies is the GS1 member organisation that allocated the number to the brand owner. A company registers with one organisation, usually the one where it has its seat, and keeps those number ranges wherever it later manufactures. A Swedish company with a 73x prefix can have every unit made in Vietnam and the barcode will not change.
