How to Look Up a Food Barcode With Open Food Facts

Want to look up a packaged food before you buy it—or check a product you already have at home? Open Food Facts lets you search a public database by product name or barcode and view the information contributors have collected.

It’s useful for finding a product record and seeing what information is available. But there’s a catch: a record can be incomplete or wrong. For an allergy or other safety decision, check the current package and contact the manufacturer if anything is unclear. Don’t rely on the database alone.

Find a product by barcode

1. Go to Open Food Facts. Find the search box at the top of the page.
2. Type the full barcode number from the package and press Enter or choose Search. You can also search by name, but check the result carefully: similar products and different sizes can have separate records.
3. Open the matching result if a list appears. Check the barcode, product name, size, and countries listed against the item you’re investigating. A similar-looking record from another market may not describe your package.
4. Look for any warning that the page is incomplete. Scroll to Health for nutrition and ingredient sections, if the record has them. Product details and photos vary.

We tested the desktop site with the example barcode 3017620422003. The search opened a 400 g Nutella record showing the same barcode and an incomplete-page warning. At the time of our check, its ingredient section listed only two ingredients, despite the page also listing allergens. That’s a clear reason not to treat a record as a complete label. We did not compare this record with a physical package.

Use the record without overtrusting it

Open Food Facts says contributors submit product information and photos, and some producers supply data too. That doesn’t guarantee every field is complete or current. Formulations and labels can vary by market and change over time.

• For ingredients and allergens: read the current label on the specific package. If you cannot verify it, ask the manufacturer before consuming the product.
• For nutrition comparisons: compare the same unit—such as per 100 g versus per serving—and check the figures against the package. A missing field is not a zero.
• For an uncertain match: check barcode, size, and country; if the exact item isn’t there, don’t assume a similar record is interchangeable.

When a search comes up empty

Check each barcode digit, including any leading zeroes, and try again. If you search by name instead, narrow the result using the brand and package size. Some products may have no record or may have incomplete entries; Open Food Facts focuses on packaged foods.

Found something wrong? The product page includes a Report a problem section with options to correct data or flag it for moderators. We checked that those controls appeared, but didn’t submit an edit or report.