I'm having trouble getting matches for barcodes. What can I do?

I'm having trouble getting matches for barcodes. What can I do?

A large majority of the barcodes in our database are either GTIN-12 (UPC-A) or GTIN-13 (EAN/UCC-13). However, there are times when all we have for a food item is the GTIN-8 (EAN/UCC-8) or UPC-E barcode.

If you are having trouble finding matches for your barcode we suggest trying the following:
     - Convert from GTIN-12 (UPC-A) to GTIN-13 (EAN/UCC-13) by adding a leading "0" to the barcode, then try again.
     - Add 5 leading zeroes to a valid GTIN-8 (EAN/UCC-8) and try again.
     - Remove all zeroes from the barcode and try again.

We also recommend that you calculate the check-digit of a barcode. Doing this is especially helpful if you are using a mobile barcode scanner. Mobile devices sometimes incorrectly scan a product's barcode. This typically happens when there isn't enough light, or if the barcode is obscured.

By calculating the check-digit of a barcode you can make sure that you are only calling our API with valid barcodes. If an incorrect/invalid barcode is sent to Chomp, it will appear that the product does not exist in the database.

Another recommendation is to build logic into your app that asks your users to scan the product one more time, or manually enter the barcode number as a backup.

Here is a simple JS script that you can use to calculate the check-digit of a barcode.

Alternatively, you can use our Food Search to look up foods that are in our database. You can use the barcodes you find here to look up foods in our barcode endpoint. It is entirely possible that we have the food you're trying to find but just have a differently formatted barcode for it, or have the same food but in a different package size.

You can also try the Name Search endpoint to perform broader searches for foods if you still can't get any barcode matches.

If those tricks don't work then the food item you are trying to find may not be in our database yet. The good news is that we keep track of barcode calls that didn't return any data. We make an effort to find these products and add them to our database.


Types of EAN/UPC barcodes

EAN-13
     - Symbol ID: JE0
     - Capacity: 13 numeric
     - Omnidirectional
     - Does not support attributes
UPC-A
     - Symbol ID: JE0
     - Capacity: 12 numeric
     - Omnidirectional
     - Does not support attributes
EAN-8
     - Symbol ID: JE4
     - Capacity: 8 numeric
     - Omnidirectional
     - Supports GTIN-8
     - Does not support attributes
UPC-E
     - Symbol ID: JE0
     - Capacity: 12 numeric, zeroes suppressed
     - Omnidirectional
     - Supports GTIN-12
     - Does not support attributes


For more information please consider reading the the article "Are UPC-A and EAN-13 (barcodes) the same?" on NationwideBarcode.com.

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