Friday, May 29, 2009

Why does produce have PLU codes?

While shopping at sprouts farmers market the other day I noticed that in the bin of organic apples had different codes on apples. Why they were mixed in the same bin was an easier question to answer, a little boy shopping in front of me with his mom was helping her to "shop". He was picking up all kinds of goodies that were not necessarily on her list so they were getting put back.

It made me think was I really buying the fruit and veggies that I thought I was? Does this child shop in front of me often?

So I looked at the stickers to confirm the sticker on the fruit was the sticker on the price tag at the bottom of the bin. I was surprised to see that the sticker had little to do with the pricing and more to do with the identification of the produce. Come to find out the "sticker" has a code called a PLU code. The PLU code identifies how the fruit was grown, conventional, organic or the devil produce GMO.

Read my entire article about PLU codes on organic produce. It was really interesting to see what information is able to fit onto that little sticker and why it is so important that we all know how to read it.

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