Hi there ...
Whilst I don't have the specific answer to your enquiry, I can maybe direct you to the relevant resources.
In 2003, UCC and EAN International became a single organization. As I understand it, around 2 years ago the new organization began a global re-branding exercise to become known as 'GS1'.
Head office still in Brussels. Here is the link to that site:
http://www.gs1.org/productssolutions/barcodes/implementation /
There's technical and implimentation information there.
I don't know that I'd just 'drop the first digit' though without checking specifically with your regional EAN/UPC/GS1 (whatever) office. One of the reasons for this is that, at least as far as I'm aware, each number is unique and dropping one digit may lead to undesirable outcomes. Also, there used to be a 'checksum digit' in the sequence. So, deleting one integer may not necessarily work.
From our regional GS1 guide (not strictly on point but helpful in the context of how this stuff is implimented):
'How many digits do I print beneath the EAN/UPC Symbol in the Human Readable text?
You must, absolutely and without exception, print 12 digits, no more, no less, below the UPC-A Symbol.
You must, absolutely and without exception, print 13 digits, no more, no less, below the EAN-13 Symbol.
You must, absolutely and without exception, print eight digits, no more, no less, below UPC-E and EAN-8 Symbols.'
As I said, this definately isn't my field but I hope this helps a little.
Kind regards,
Paul Blakey
12th & Vine Post
