Is there a free UK food barcode database/API?

General Web Dev
1

Hi,
I keep a stock of tinned/packaged food, in case there is an outburst of panic buying or supply problems or natural or man made disasters. We eat the older items and top up with new items in an ongoing manner. I log the tins in a MySQL database which I manage with a web based interface that I have developed using PHP. I record the food type (eg baked beans), packaging (eg tin,box,tube), location, expiry date, genre (eg soup, vegetable) and an optional field for manufacturer. This is purely for personal use.

I have been wondering about the feasibility of using barcodes to speed up the logging of new items. I am currently simply looking at how to convert the bar code number to some meaningful product information. I was interested to find https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/api-guide.html. But I am in the UK and the first two codes I tried it with found no results - presumably because this is a USA based database.

Does anyone know of any free options available to me in the UK?

Thank you.

2

GS1 handles the registering of product barcodes in the UK. Given this it’s a fair assumption that they have a database of products and their GTINs. I don’t know if they have an API to get a list of products and numbers, as I’ve not used them in that capacity, but it’s possible.
On the other hand, would it be out of the way to add functionality to your existing system, to be able to assign the GTIN to each product?

3

Thank you I will look into that.
Yes, it did occur to add the codes myself. I thought I would see if anyone had invented that wheel before hand.

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