PLU Codes
PLU codes are the produce look-up codes that every grower, wholesaler, and retailer uses to inventory, stock, ship, and sell their food. You probably have seen the stickers on the items you buy at the store–the numbers on these stickers are how the foods are tracked.
I just found a site that has an alphabetical listing of all PLU codes. You’d think something like that would be somewhat dry reading, but surprisingly it’s quite interesting: while many of the items are fruits and vegetables that I know well and am quite familiar with, others are completely foreign to me. When I come across one of those items (like cherimoya, feijoa, gobo root, or homli fruit [no image found; if you know anything about this one, please let me know]), I type it into an image search and track down some information about it. It’s kind of cool to see how many different things are out there. Try it, it’s fun!
April 4th, 2008 at 4:38 am
Did you know that you can also tell certain things from a PLU code, such as . . .
if it has a 9 in front of the number it is organic
Example:
Conventional* Cox Orange Pippin Apple (4105)
Organic Cox Orange Pippin Apple (94105)
if it has an 8, it is genetically modified
Here’s a link for further reading . . .
http://www.plantea.com/genetically-modified-foods.htm
*Conventional is the term for Non-Organic
April 15th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Glad to see that your spouse has a PLU code: 3001
December 11th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Hey there,
The homli fruit is a crossbreed of a Duncan grapefruit and a King orange. It was developed by a Scottish-American furniture family (the Gordon’s). I’ve never tried one, but I’d love to!
Julia
March 19th, 2012 at 5:49 pm
Since you’re interested in PLU codes, I wanted to tell you about a flash card deck I. It has 600 items with photos (and growing).
1. Go to http://ankisrs.net/ and download and install the flashcard program.
2. Go to File->Download->Shared Deck
3. Type “PLU code” in the search field. Highlight the deck and click ok.
It’s about 10meg and takes a minute to download. Be sure to read the overview on the download page.
The next version of Anki is supposed to make it easier to link to a deck (without the cumbersome install instructions). The configuration items in the overview page are supposed to be less tedious. And, there will be a facility to make collaboration possible (commenting on a deck, suggesting additional information, corrections, etc.).