The little stickers that come home on your fruits and vegetables from the grocery store are called Price Look-up Codes or PLUs. They are used by grocery stores to make checkout and inventory control easier, faster, and more accurate. The last 4 letters indicate what kind of fruit or vegetable it is. A fifth digit is added to the beginning of the code to identify non-conventionally grown produce.
If the PLU starts with a 0 or is only four numbers long: the produce was grown conventionally with the use of pesticides.
If the PLU starts with an 8: the produce is genetically modified. A genetically modified item can not be labelled as organic.
If the PLU starts with a 9: the produce is organic, meaning it was grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, genetically modified organisms, human sewage sludge or nanomaterials.
For example, if a banana is labelled 4011, it was grown conventionally. If the banana is labelled 84011, it is genetically modified (GE or GMO). If it is labelled 94011, it was grown organically.
