I didnt know this. PLU coding on veggies and fruit

[Figarosmom]

?si=Zl0cRKS0SeQ2RAig

[StarryNite]

1. Good to know!

Thank you for sharing.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. I don't know about plastics, but food grade pariffin is very common

They coat all the tomatoes. I like to scrub tomatoes with organic detergent and scrubby pad, improves the flavor by removing the bitterness.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. 3000 and 4000 numbers are conventional produce; ones that start with 9 are usually organic, that's it.

[llmart]

4. Labels starting with 9 mean they are organic.

That's always been the case, and of course they will be as safe as possible with regards to pesticide use.

[ProfessorGAC]

5. Hyperbolic

First, wax and plastic aren't remotely the same thing. So, it could be something as benign as paraffin.
Second, fruit has been waxed for around 100 years, so the process is fully understood.
Plastic would bother me, too. But, paraffin is very cheap and the cost of application is lower than for polymer, so it's highly likely it's merely wax.
Third, the 9 means organic, which does not mean pesticide or herbicide free. Much of the "organic" classification is sheer marketing.
If those seeing this want to accept it as important, fine by me.
But, don't get fooled into believing it's necessarily meaningful.

[sl8]

6. It's not "if you see a 4", it's "if you see a 4 digit number".

The narrator got that wrong. Heck, you can see a "4" in their own example of an organic PLU.

Also, I'm pretty sure that organic fruit can have wax coatings, so long as the wax is organic, so their dramatic example of scraping off some wax doesn't mean much. Similar for the pesticides - fruit marked organic can have them, so long as they're considered organic pesticides.