What do the numbers on produce stickers mean?

A 9 up front means organic.

The number on a fruit or vegetable sticker is a PLU code, short for price look-up. Cashiers and checkout scanners use it to ring up the right item at the right price.

Four digits means conventionally grown. The standard yellow banana is 4011. The digits are simply assigned, so they don’t tell you anything else about how the fruit was grown.

A 9 in front means organic. An organic yellow banana is 94011. The 9 is the only prefix the global PLU system uses for organic produce.

WHAT ABOUT AN 8?

You may have read that a code starting with 8 means genetically modified. That prefix was once set aside for genetically modified produce, but it was never used in stores. The 83000 and 84000 ranges are being kept for future codes, so a leading 8 won’t mean genetically modified.

THE VARIETY NAME

Some stickers also print the variety, like Honeycrisp, Envy or Hass. PluckFresh 3.2 reads that name when you scan with the sticker facing the camera.