Barcodes for Beer, Cider, Spirits & Wine
You can purchase barcodes for spirits, wine, cider and beer products below. You will receive EAN-13 barcodes for use on all alcohol products in New Zealand and worldwide. Please refer to the FAQs at the bottom of this page if you need more information about barcodes for wine bottles.
The New Zealand Winegrowers Labelling Guide advises that the EAN-13 barcode is typically used in New Zealand for wine products. The EAN-13 barcodes we sell are globally unique barcodes that comply with the standardised retail barcoding system used in New Zealand and worldwide. Our barcodes comply with all retail barcoding software and barcode scanners in New Zealand and worldwide.
Having a barcode on your wine products is not a legal requirement. However, most retailers require barcodes. Retailers use barcodes for stocktaking purposes as well as pricing. They can easily keep track of their inventory and make the sales/checkout process efficient and accurate.
Since 2007, we have been selling barcodes to customers in New Zealand and worldwide.
Congratulations to our clients for their success in the 2024 NZ Spirits Awards;
Waiheke Distilling Co, Fenton Street Gin, The Cambridge Distillery Company, Bay Distilling, Forth Luck Distillery, Mt Fyffe Distillery, Kākāpō Distillery, Clark Lane Distillery, dSTIL Project, Elsewhere Gin, Mothers Ruined Gin Ltd,
FAQs about alcohol barcodes
Every retail product requires a different barcode number (including variations such as size or wine type). You will need two EAN-13 barcodes if your wine is being sold in individual bottles or cartons for sale by the case.
Standard practice is for each variant to have a different barcode. If the price is the same (across all the product variations), you might get away with using the same barcode number on all the product variations. This depends on which retail stores you are selling your products in. The larger retail stores, in particular, might require a different barcode for each product variation (especially if they do stocktaking automatically instead of manually).
Some retailers and wholesalers require ITF-14 barcodes (GTIN-14 barcodes) to go on the pallets of wine and wine cases. An ITF-14 barcode goes on the delivery boxes that contain your wine bottles – please discuss this with your retailers to find out if they require these. ITF-14 barcodes are 14 digits long and are based on the 13-digit EAN barcode that goes on the wine labels. They are scanned when each delivery carton enters the warehouse/storage area so that your retailers know how many bottles of wine are in each box. This helps them keep track of the remaining stock in their warehouse and know when they’re running low on a particular product and need to order more.
Usually, you’ll need one ITF-14 barcode for each EAN-13 barcode that you have. You can purchase an ITF-14 barcode here if you need one. Occasionally, a retailer/wholesaler might also require that you get a GS-128 barcode that encodes particular details (e.g. batch number, date, GLN number of the vineyard). If you need a GS-128 barcode, we can provide this. Please contact us for a quote (and tell us what information you need to be encoded into the GS-128 barcode).