Most of the fruit you pick up in the grocery store comes affixed with a bar code. There has been speculation all over the web about what these barcodes mean. There are two facts you should concern yourself regarding these stickers.

Fact #1:

These barcodes contain PLU (or Product Look Up) codes which identify various qualities, such as how food products are grown and whether or not they are genetically modified.

Fact #2:

This is NOT a reliable way for consumers to be informed on the nature of their produce.

But wait, isn’t that somewhat contradictory?

The PLU codes are administered by the International Federation for Produce Standards, which maintains a list of five-digit codes. At times, these codes appear as four digits, as the leading 0 will sometimes not be displayed. These codes identify qualities about the produce, like where it was grown, its size, how it was grown, and its type. These PLU codes have been in use in grocery stores since 1990. They make checkout and inventory management faster and less complicated. They make sure the customer is paying the correct price and eliminate the need for the cashier to identify the product, whether it was conventionally grown or organic, etc.

Of the PLU codes issued so far, there is a code you can follow. If the first digit is an 8, it indicates the product is genetically modified. If it begins with a 9, it indicates it is organic. If it begins in a 0, it means it is a non-qualified, or conventionally grown product.

This isn’t where you stop reading. As a consumer, you cannot rely on PLU codes to distinguish between different types of produce. The use of these PLU codes is optional to begin with, so you’ll find a lot of products won’t have a sticker. In addition, the PLU stickers were not developed for the consumer, but the retailer. It does not exist to help you make informed decisions. Here’s the kicker:

If a Genetically Modified food supplier thinks that customers won’t want to buy their GM products, they can decline to tag it with PLU codes. If retailers don’t expect the price of genetically modified produce to be any different from conventionally grown produce, they can omit the “8” that indicates that it is a genetically modified product.

At the end of the day, there is no government sponsored food labeling scheme in the United States that will assist you in determining whether or not produce is grown organically, conventionally, or is GM. If you, as a curious consumer, want to search the PLU code to find out what it identifies, you can do so here.

Read more at http://higherperspective.com/2014/12/fruit-barcodes.html#3ctYt3rW5UVAlhQk.99