How Crucial is a Numeric Code?
Ever purchased a product from a supermarket and wondered what those numeric codes at the back of the packet meant? Well, you’ll be glad to know that they’ve been actually put there for a reason. But who puts in those codes and why are they on our food packets? You’ll be amazed to learn that the ISO or International Organization for Standardization has developed several codes for food products. This is to help you understand if you’re making a safe purchase. Know that it’s your right to know what you consume and with these codes, you’ll be able to do just the same. Imaging glancing through endless details on a food packet, we doubt you’ll be able to do that at a mall or grocery store. This is exactly why the ISO went ahead and classified all food information into codes for our understanding. Let’s give you an example of how this works. Looking into PLU’s or price look-up codes for food products, here’s what you can understand: PLU codes are usually seen as a four digit number. These help us identify different kinds of produce. For example a four-digit PLU code that begins with either 3 or 4 indicates a traditionally grown product or food. A five-digit PLU code on the other hand that begins with nine indicates food or produce that have been grown organically. You may want to especially look out for five-digit PLU codes that begin with 8 simply because these products would mean genetically modified products. You’d certainly not want to be feeding off these products neither have your kids feed off these. These codes should ideally give you a heads up on what you’re going to be investing into. We’d recommend that you take the time to analyse what these codes mean and stand for and make purchases accordingly. You could even scan through the bar codes made available on the bar code system to understand more about the product. Unfortunately sometimes, damage to the bar code would not help you with the required information. Make sure to get in touch with customer service for further help. We’d always recommend that you purchase products with bar codes; this should help you make a healthy decision. In addition, you may also want to check with the product’s expiry and manufacturing date before making a purchase. We’d like to assure you that tiny little details such as these would certainly help you in the long...
Read MoreImportance of Reading Food Labels on Packaged Foods
All packaged food products are available with a nutrition label which intents to provide with all the details crucial for knowing exactly what you are consuming. If you know what your food contains, it will enable you in making healthier choices. Additionally, when you check the food labels, it will make it easy for you to compare the nutrient contents of varied available options. Always remember that a healthy diet is vital throughout your lifetime. For this reason, when you pay attention to the nutrition labels of the food products, it will pave way towards improving your overall diet. Let us consider why it is important to read food labels on packaged foods. Provides crucial information If you read the nutrition label, you will get vital information like vitamin content, carbohydrate, protein, cholesterol, saturated fat, total fat, calories and serving size. The labels also include a list of the ingredients. This information will allow you in staying on track with your daily nutrients and calories target. It will also assist you in avoiding some ingredients if you have food intolerance or if you are following a diet which excludes some elements, like sugar or dairy products. Improve your diet Even though there are large numbers of nutritious food available in the market, usually you fail to consume key nutrients. But if you keep checking the food labels, you can actually get to know how much nutrients you are taking. You will realize the food products that contain valuable nutrients and those that don’t. Thus, you can add nutritious food products to your diet and significant improve your diet. Helps you in cutting back Doctors and health experts often recommend cutting down on added sugar, saturated fat and extra salt. So, if you check the food labels, you will actually get to know what you are eating and what you need to cut down on. According to health experts, it is advisable to take saturated fat and added sugar to no more than 5 to 15 percent of daily calories, and cut back the sodium intake to less than 2,500 milligrams per day. Know what is exactly inside the package If you want to know exactly what is inside the package, you simply need to check the label. Take a look at the list of the ingredients and you will get all the answers. The first ingredient indicates the ingredient with the maximum amount, the second with the second highest amount and so...
Read MoreFood Packs – a Product Identity
You and I generally go about our task of shopping and buying food materials. Sometimes we refer to the brand of the product or check out when the product gets expired and at other times we just want to see some instructions, but have we ever thought about how much more the packaging means or holds about the product that we consume. The packaging and the things written on the packs, tell us a story about the product and all about how it is manufactured, let’s check a few things we can find out from the pack: Brand and Style – Each company or product has its own brand identity and an image that sells or does not sell the product. This is found in the branding of the product and the style of the pack. Ingredients – Almost all food product packages mention the sort of ingredients that go into the making of the product. This helps you in deciding whether you really want to eat the item or give it a pass. Nutritional value – How much a product contributes to the nutritional needs of your body is found in details on the pack of the product. So now you know how nutritious, the pack of chips you emptied, was for your body. Numeric Codes – This is the numeric value found on the product pack, which conveys information about the manufacture, quality and place of production of the item. The codes are a requirement of law and no food product can be sold legally without having the numeric code mentioned on the packaging. Important dates – The date of manufacture and the date of expiry are important dates that need to be checked before buying a product. This information would be impossible to find it if was not put on the pack of a product. Being safe is better than being sorry when it comes to food...
Read MoreDisadvantages of coding systems
Although bar coding system has been existent in the current market for a while there are new coding systems that are being implemented in some of the developed countries. Coding system is also one of the main steps in conducting a quantitative analysis of qualitative data. Many research candidates get used in here and take help from statisticians who are proficient in this area. Using this coding system has been advantageous saving time for the sellers reducing the lengthy super market queues. Also it was easy to locate the stock in the warehouse using the coding system. Now there has been a new type of coding system called QR codes and some other coding systems. QR codes both customers and sellers and can be used for any product. Although there are many advantages of these coding systems there are also some disadvantages which are not observed. Some of the disadvantages of the new coding system are: Lack of familiarity or inexperience in using the coding system by the users and consumers. Lack of idea about representation of QR codes. Dependability on a scanning device or a smart mobile to scan the product code. Without a smart phone, camera and an internet connection a QR code is of no use. An application on the smart phone is mandatory. Damage to the codes can lead to inability of scanning or obtaining the product information. Scanning the code might sometime redirect the consumers to malicious sites thereby leading to virus attacks. Although there are some disadvantages of using these codes, it can be overcome spreading awareness among the users and wide usage of the codes. Companies must help and guide consumers in utilizing in such codes rather than just leaving it to the consumers. Success of any product or service requires some time and guidance and awareness among the people. As the earlier coding systems like bar coding and RFID systems, QR code might also succeed over a period of...
Read MoreDetails regarding Universal Product Code
The Universal Product Code or UPC is a particular kind of barcode which is used in countries including Australia, the United States, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, etc. to track the products. The commonly used barcode is UPC-A and it has 12 numerical digits which are assigned to each product. Each UPC-A code includes a strip containing black bars as well as white spaces which could be scanned. It follows a 12-numerical digit pattern. There would be no characters or letters or other content on a UPC-A barcode. Further, there would be a one-to-one correspondence between the bars and digits. In fact, the 12- digit number could be represented by only one method. Also, there is only a single method in order to represent every visual barcode in numerical terms. The area which could be scanned in a UPC-A barcode has the following pattern of SLLLLLLMRRRRRRE where ‘S’ denotes start ‘M’ denotes middle and ‘E’ denotes end. These guard bars are given in the same way on each UPC barcode where the left and right sections represent 12 numerical digits collectively. This way of representing the 12 digits make each product code unique. The first L denotes a specific number system which should be used by the digits which follow. The last R represents the error detecting check digit which permits the detection of errors during manual entry or scanning. The non-numerical guard bars are used to separate the two six-digit groups. There are also a host of online programmes available to understand figures better. These barcodes could be printed in different densities using a wide range of scanning and printing processes. The width of a single module is called the x-dimension. Only a single x-dimension should be used throughout a particular UPC-A barcode. The width and space of the bar is calculated by multiplying x-dimension with the module width or space of every bar. To summarize, it is mandatory to have a basic knowledge about the Universal Product Code in today’s...
Read MoreEducation on numeric codes
There are many people who show little interest in matters like numeric codes. But that is a mistake. Numeric codes can reveal quite a bit about the source and quality of the product. This is especially true when we live in a world that is obsessed with organic products and the quality of livestock that we consume. It is therefore appropriate that all of us should educate ourselves as much as we can about these codes as possible so that we may choose the products that we buy more carefully. It will allow us to lead healthier...
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