What does the number on a fruit sticker mean?
Editor’s Note: We’ve compiled info from 3 different sources to help uncover what many already know about what those little stickers on produce actually tell you- in our attempt to further help you as a consumer KNOW what you are eating and if it has been genetically modified…
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7 out of 10 items in grocery store shelves contain ingredients that have been genetically modified. Fruit and vegetables do not come with nutrition labels but they do have stickers (PLU – Price Look Up Code) which contain pertinent information.
Next time you decide to purchase that apple or cut a slice out of that melon, consider the PLU sticker. This sticker will tell you whether the fruit was organically grown, genetically modified, or produced with chemical fertilizers, herbicides or fungicides.
PLU stickers that have 4 digits and begin with a “3″ or “4″: produce is conventionally grown. This means that this produce was sprayed with weed killers and chemical pesticides.
PLU stickers that have 5-digits and start with “8″: produce was genetically engineered (man intervened by manipulating the genes to produce a larger or brighter colored food). This produce may have been chemically treated.
PLU stickers that have 5-digits and start with “9″: produce was raised organically. You can be sure that this produce was not treated with any chemicals.
If you see other variations of code on your produce, you can refer to the following website and look up the PLU code as well as other information regarding this topic: http://www.fruitsticker.com.
Note: the adhesive used to stick the PLU onto the fruit is edible but the sticker itself is not.
Having some origin coding would be great for seeing how far a particular fruit/vegetable traveled but that is something still hidden in our giant supermarkets.
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Price Look-Up codes, commonly called PLU codes, PLU numbers or PLUs, are identification numbers affixed to produce and other products in grocery stores and supermarkets to make check-out and inventory control easier, faster, and more accurate.
The code is a four or five-digit number, identifying the type of bulk produce, usually including the variety.
Organic produce is denoted by a five-digit number whose first digit is 9 (e.g. 94011 for organic yellow bananas); an 8 prefix indicates genetically modified food.
The codes have been in use since 1990. Currently, there are over 1300 universal PLU codes assigned.
Use of PLU codes eliminates the need for grocery store checkers to identify each variety of produce visually. This advantage is especially important with the growth of the organic produce market; organic and conventional oranges, for example, may look the same but have very different prices.
The system is administered by the International Federation for Produce Standards, an affiliate of the Produce Marketing Association.
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Price look-up codes are generally printed on small stickers or tags.
They can tell if your fruit is conventional, organic or Genetically Modified.
Those PLU code stickers that you have to peel off your fruit and vegetables do more than just convey prices to the cashier. If you know how to read them, says Marion Owen at PlanTea.com, they can tell you a thing or two.
Conventional produce gets a four-digit number.
Organic produce gets a five-digit number that starts with 9.
Genetically modified items also get a five-digit code, but that code starts with 8.
Examples
4139: Conventional Granny Smith apple
94139: Organic Granny Smith
84139: Genetically Modified Granny Smith
From http://www.seriouseats.com/…
and
All PLU codes http://plucodes.com/search_…
Here is the PLU of a Gala Apple I am eating.
APPLES (4173)Variety: Royal Gala
Variety Info:
Type: Global
Category: FR
North American Size: 100 size and smaller
Rest of World Size: AFW = less than 205g
“4401″: A four-digit code indicates conventionally grown items, here white-fleshed peaches.
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Various sources cited: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sharon_Porter, http://www.fruitsticker.com/ and http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=5170
I love being “in-the-know” about this coding.
Now I can shop like a detective!
9′s please!
xo Annette
Thats great to know!!!
I heard someone on TV say that a simple way to help remember the codes is:
Organic: 9 is fine
Genetically Modified: 8 I hate
Conventionally Grown: 4 is a bore
is there a website for Fruit and Veggies? because the fruitsticker.com is only for fruit. there should be somewhere i can just look up any of the stickers on my food!
Grated its about a year late;
All your fruit and veggies are coded the same (accurate to southern Ontario(Canada):
4060 – broccoli
4070 – Celery
4135 – Royal Gala apples
4011 – Bananas
Also note, organic foods are always labeled organic, therefore the sell for more.
As well, organic codes are the exact same as non-organic codes, except with the ’9′ added to the front
94070 – Organic celery
94011 – Organic Bananas
Also, Organic fruits and veggies can also be identified by a purple label/sticker/elastic/band of some sort. So if you are in the mindset of trying to pass those organic bananas off as regular bananas, don’t forget to remove the purple stuff on top, because that is what your cashier is looking for. Not the sticker.
At this time, Bakery codes follow their own systems which are only similar from store to store.
It may also be interesting to know, as food for thought(pun!) that your local grocery store does not tag the majority of the fruit/veggies (stickers like the one depicted above) are the producers stickers. Only the plain white rectangle stickers are printed by store employees. Which do not appear on most fruit.
–The Educated.
woop!! i want a 9!!!!!!!!!! unfortunatly, the banana im eating is a 4 D:
…Every fruit should then theoretically be labeled with an 8, because every fruit/vegetable is genetically modified. Every produce item we have eaten since cultivating our own crops has undergone genetic modification through selective breeding.
Selective Breeding is the most rudimentary way to genetically modify an organism. That is, to choose the most desirable traits from a grown organism, and select to only mate those, with others which also have those desired traits, thereby over a long period of time, being able to harvest seeds which contain the DNA to produce the largest growing plants, or the sweetest tasting fruit, or the longest lasting rose.
Take a look at your household cat or dog. He/she has been genetically modified as well. We created a vast line-up of different breads of cats and dogs through selective breeding, following the exact same principals.
Why are award winning race horses bread with other award winning race horses? To attempt to retain those genes which naturally allow the horse to have a more muscular body type, to allow him/her to run faster and win more.
I am sorry, but you have been had by the Media, and uniformed reporters.
8 I hate? How about – 8, but its a bit late.
–The Educated.
Sorry, mr. educated, but it is YOU that has been had by the media (who are owned by the large corporations..) Cross breeding and cross pollination to produce a bigger, better, stronger, sweeter, vegetable or fruit etc., etc., is done with specific genes, with a specific goal. Genetic modification for herbicide-resistant plants is NOT the same as selective breeding!! To make a fruit or vegetable “roundup ready” or resistant to other pesticides and herbicides is a random free-for-all of blasting the foreign particles at the fruit genes and hoping some of them make it. There is no guarantee of which part makes it into the fruit. In additon, this allows a grower to liberally drench the food we eat in herbicides and pesticides, much of which has a flouride base which is very sticky and very difficult to get off the plant. These poisons enter our food system then not only in the very genetics of the plant but on the outside of them too, and we have recently become aware that the chemicals are changing the very ‘flora and fauna’ of our digestive system. Furthermore, it has been shown over and over that the organic methods of farming actually produce more quality nutritious food for the same amount of dollars spent per acre. It would seem it is the governments fees and licensing etc which drives up the price of the organic produce.
Mr educated, you may want to take a look at a movie called King Corn. Its a few years old, but you hear some interesting information, direct from the horse’s mouth. So to speak. Please continue to educate yourself, and stop letting yourself be misled by people who do NOT have your health or best interests in their goals.
msC
There’s a bit of a difference between just breeding and genetic modification. The difference is this: breeding doesn’t involve using bacteria and viruses that are harmful to people. Have you heard about what happened with BT corn in the Phillippines? oh right…that wasn’t broadcast on the news in America, I heard it from the BBC. Well, fyi: that corn killed the people who were living around it because it was releasing toxins into the air. There have been lots of similar incidents in East Asia and India as a result of GMO plants which are not in fact (at least in most cases) an improvement over the regularly bred strains except that they can be copyrighted by companies, which is the other difference between breeding and genetic modification: companies cannot control them and through them the farmers. A farmer can be in direct control of his crops rather than being a thrall to a huge company. That is why I am opposed to GMOs, and I have seen multiple documentaries as well as read multiple books on this subject, I have tried hard to be non-judgemental about the whole thing and carefully studied the different processes. I am neither a breeder nor a chemist, so I have no conflict of interest, but I am a consumer so I have a vested interest in my bodily health as well as the economic health of this country and the world. GMO’s are bad for both.
To: “The Educated”
FYI~
Bred, not “bread”
It’s, not “its”
Hello,
@ The educated- do you know where I could find legit references for this information. Is it a FACT that 9′s= organic, 8′s = GM (I know you believe all fruit has been GM but here I am speaking of seeds that were Gentically engineered in labratories, gene splicing and not simply cross breeding) 3′s and 4′s = conventional (sprays, pesticides).
I’m writing a paper for school and would really like any kind of legit source that you might be able to suggest.
@Everyone else- thanks for the blog, totally interesting stuff…any sourcing you could provide would be great! Thanks so much.
~Sairah
@ The Educated
You really shouldn’t name yourself that when you clearly miss the entire point of things. . When people breed race horses, or breed cattle, that is animal husbandry. Improving the characteristics of plants by cross breeding, grafting, etc, that is a natural process. GMO plants have had their DNS strains broken and built back up with bacteria (or viruses) and animal DNA . While some of these modifications may be harmless, the thought of eating food whose genes have been spliced alarms me. The manner in which these corporations push their products all around the world and threaten farms are suspect. A person can start educating themselves just by going to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food or view a number of DVDs on netflix. Or you can go to a local farmer’s market or community garden and speak to people about why they do what they do… they have a wealth of information.
Excellent information…..
Does anybody knows what does a PLU code start with 6? I recently bought an ambrosia apple and it has a code 64749. Is it genetic type of apple? thanks.
I have also bought a PC ambrosia apple with the same code (64749), yet I can not find any information about it. I tried the plu code search(plucodes,com) with no results… I have even tried omitting the “6″ thinking maybe they have made a mistake, but rather than ambrosia apple the number 4749 was spinach…
If some labels start with a PLU code of 3 and some with a 4, to me it means there must be a difference between them. Anyone know what that is?
I think 3 indicates bulk. I bought a bag of navel oranges and the labels all started with 3 instaead of 4 which were the loose navel oranges.
Thank you SO much for including your sources!! So many blogs provide info but don’t mention where it came from, so you can never be sure if it is correct or not. Awesome!
Reblogged this on healtheternal and commented:
Always good to know where your veggies are really coming from…
I use miracle gro on my garden. is that considered unsafe
Just because a fruit or vegetable is labeled Organic does not mean it’s free of chemicals or pesticides. Many of the organically approved pesticides are as toxic if not more toxic then conventional pesticides. Granted I’m not a big fan of GMO foods. I believe in full disclosure to the consumer. I don’t care if you have some certificate that says your food is “Organic”. I want to know exactly what is in it, what you sprayed it with, where the seeds came from, where you grew it, how you shipped….. everything.
Codes beginning with 3 are also genetically modified.