Have you ever wondered what the numbers on those little stickers on your produce mean? They are called PLU codes {price look-up codes} and originally were meant to help the seller price and sell the item accurately. You may already know that the codes can tell how the produce was grown, but they are not always reliable.
The stickers are not required, and if a seller is not planning on pricing genetically modified foods differently, they will occasionally leave the first number off of the sticker {since the codes are really for the sellers, this is not really a crazy violation}. Overall, PLU’s can be a great guide to telling you how your food was grown, but just remember, produce with conventionally grown PLU’s can still be potentially genetically modified.
Here’s the 411 on deciphering the numbers:
- PLU’s consist of 5 numbers. Often, when the first number is a 0, they just leave it off of the PLU entirely. PLU’s with 4 digits or that start with a 0, tell you that the produce was grown conventionally with the use of pesticides.
- If the 5 digit number starts with an 8, the item is genetically modified.
- If the 5 digit number starts with a 9, the produce was organically grown.
Happy decoding,
Mavis
**Fun fact: The glue they use for the PLU stickers is food grade, the stickers themselves are not.
Barbee near Dallas says
Ooooh! Thank you!
I knew about the ‘9’ code but didn’t know the ‘8’. That is very good to know.
P.S. The stickers are not compostable either. They persist for years . 🙁
The Smallest Acre says
Thanks for the extra tip about the stickers not being compostable, Barbee.
Lisa says
My son collected fruit stickers for years and years. Now that he’s adult he rarely adds to the collection, but every so often we get a really interesting one he saves. When he first started I thought there would only be a few. He made an album from a ledger book, and has hundreds cataloged alphabetically. There are people who sell them on eBay, and he got some from penpals in other countries! I never took them off fruit in the store, but some friends would do that for him.
Bananas often have tie-ins to cartoon movies.
Tammy says
Interesting! I don’t generally pay attention to the PLU codes, nor did I even know what “PLU” stood for! When I was a young adult, my great uncle, who grows/sells fruit (in California) started doing some fruit with stickers on it and hired me a few times to do the stickering machine. 🙂
Susanna says
Sorrry Mavis – I’m a big dummy who scans articles! Can you delete my redundant comment? I tried to but couldn’t
Mavis Butterfield says
Done. 🙂
Becka says
A few years ago a friend of ours had a colonoscopy. Afterwards the doctor came into the recovery room with some pictures and was laughing. Our friend has a habit of just eating those little stickers and there was one stuck to the inside of his intestines. It was from a peach he had eaten recently.
Jodi says
Unfortunately, this contains some widely spread misinformation that went viral last year that was quickly debunked: a 9 DOES correctly identify as Organic, but an 8 does NOT mean it’s genetically modified — there is no system, and there never has been, to label GM foods, and big business is spending big bucks to keep it that way! Sorry, we should be so lucky :/
Jodi says
P.S. LOVE your blog, and always look forward to your posts filled with great ideas & information!