while (<SRC>) {
   $prod{$1} = [$2,$3,$4] if m{(.+?)\|(.+?)\|(.+?)\|(.+)};
}

##</code><code>##

while (<SRC>) {
   @{ $prod{$1} } = split('\|', $2) if m/^(.+?)\|(.+)/;
}

##</code><code>##

while (<SRC>) {
   my @row = split(/\|/, $_);
   $prod{$row[0]} = \@row[1..$#row]; #using a slice;
}