Labels offer invaluable information from safety warnings on cleaning supplies to nutrition information on products sold in grocery stores. One particular label, the numbers on fruit stickers, are found in most grocery stores and provide surprisingly useful information. Here’s what they mean.
Numbers on Fruit Stickers like 9
Most people know that bar codes on grocery store products are helpful for the registers to identify how much the item should ring up. However, the numbers on fruit stickers do more than inform the computer what to do. For instance, the numbers on fruit stickers that start with 9 and have 5 digits indicate the food has been organically grown.
Read More: Why You Should Never Buy Precut Fruit
Number 8
Another example is the number 8. Numbers on fruit stickers that begin with 8, and are a 5-digit code mean the product has been genetically modified. However, GMO foods are controversial as some have raised concerns about the correlation between allergies or other health risks and GMO foods. Additionally, scientists are still evaluating the long-term health impacts, and little is known about the future effects. Therefore, these are rare as only a few GMO foods are widely sold.
4-Digit Code
Lastly, a 4-digit code starting with either a 3 or 4 signifies the food isn’t organically grown. Instead, it has likely been “conventionally grown.“