Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dmurray 1643 days ago
Do they use a different bar code on bottles sold in Germany to those sold by the same producer in bordering countries? That's something American producers generally don't do for different states (yet?) - they use the same label and write the relevant deposit amount for every state on the bottle.
3 comments
alibarber 1643 days ago
From my experience of Denmark -> Finland, yes.

There’s a beer I like that’s cheaper and easier to order direct from the Danish brewery than buy from the alcohol monopoly in Finland. The cans look identical. Of course I tried putting them in the return machine, but it would not credit them (although they’ll still take them in for recycling)

People also buy huge quantities of beer personally from Estonia (2 hr boat ride, nice day trip) and the system would probably collapse in a day if they paid for cans from anywhere.

I crush any that I know won’t give money before putting them with the household metal recycling collection as I don’t want some poor soul wasting their time fishing them out and returning them.

link
unwind 1643 days ago
In Sweden, and probably most of Europe as far as I would guess, the European/International Article Number [1] barcode system is used. It encodes the country first, so yes.

You cannot get cash from foreign cans or PET bottles, since the deposit was not paid here.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Article_Number

link
dmurray 1643 days ago
The EAN definitely doesn't indicate the country where the product was sold. In your Swedish supermarket, I expect you'll find plenty of products with Danish or German EANs (certainly that's the case in Ireland).

As your linked article says, "The first three digits of the EAN-13 (GS1 Prefix) usually identify the GS1 Member Organization which the manufacturer has joined (not necessarily where the product is actually made)"

link
MandieD 1643 days ago
Yes, they are different between Germany and Austria, which otherwise share labeling for everything - the water and juice bottles I bought while skiing in Austria were rejected for return when I got home to Germany, despite being from brands also widely sold here.
link