I’ve always just used them to mark my territory and stick them on all my friends, but it turns out the little stickers on fruit actually have a purpose.
You may have noticed that they always have a number on them, and that code can tell you if your piece of fruit was grown naturally or genetically modified.
It’s called a price lookup (PLU) code and tells you how the fruit was grown, and the user of chemical fertilisers, fungicides, or herbicides.
The figures are the same in every country, so the international code for conventionally grown bananas is 4011.
The codes are administered by the International Federation for Produce Standards (IFPS) which has a standardised process for all retailers.
Genetically modified bananas have the code #84011, and organically grown bananas have the PLU code #94011.
Now you know exactly if you’re putting chemicals in your mouth, or not.
