Stickers on Fruit

Charlottetown’s own Nancy White released her album Stickers on Fruit in 2002. From the title track:

Stickers on the berries, the red and the blue
And of course they put stickers on the vegetables too
Well call me thick and call me lazy
But dealing with the stickers has made me crazy

Stickers on fruit
Stickers on fruit!
God, I hate those stickers on fruit!
Take me away to the institute
Where I won’t have to deal with stickers on fruit!

I bought some oranges at Sobeys the other day; sure enough, every orange had a 4012 sticker on it, a number I had to type into the self-checkout machine when I checked out.

I wondered, unpacking the oranges, who assigns these numbers? Is it Jeff Jenkins? Sobeys? The government?

Who assigns these numbers is the International Federation for Produce Standards:

IFPS is composed of national produce associations from around the globe. The long-term objective of the federation is to improve the supply chain efficiency of the fresh produce industry through developing, implementing and managing harmonised international standards.

In the IFPS system, number 4012 is the record number for large navel oranges (4013 is the code for small navel oranges, 3107 is the code for medium ones).

From the IFPS User Guide (a fascinating read if you like reading about standards and labelling schemes):

What is a Price Look-Up (PLU) code?

IFPS PLU codes are 4 or 5 digit numbers which have been used by supermarkets since 1990 to make check-out and inventory control easier, faster, and more accurate. They ensure that the correct price is paid by consumers by removing the need for cashiers to identify the product; e.g., whether or not it is conventionally or organically grown. They are primarily assigned to identify individual bulk fresh produce (and related items such as nuts and herbs) and will appear on a small sticker applied to the individual piece of fresh produce. The IFPS PLU number identifies produce items based upon various attributes which can include the commodity, the variety, the growing methodology (e.g. organic) and the size group.

The 4-digit IFPS PLU codes for produce are assigned randomly within a series of numbers within the 3000 and 4000 series. The 4-digit codes are for conventionally grown produce. The prefix of ‘9’ would be placed in front of the 4-digit conventionally grown code for organic produce. In the future, the IFPS will begin assigning IFPS PLU codes utilizing the 83000 and 84000 series; however, unlike the “9”, the leading digit “8” will have no significance.

The Canadian member of the IFPS is the Canadian Produce Marketing Association.

PLU Finder is a nice little website that wraps some helpful consumer information around each PLU code. For large navel oranges, for example: