The History of Produce Stickers

In the United States, labels on fruit crates became widespread in the late 1890s when the country’s national grocery marketplace began to emerge. The first person to put stickers on fruit directly, at least on a commercial scale, was reportedly Tom Mathison, a produce farmer in Washington. He placed stickers branded with the name of his farm on his apples and later added a ladybug, reportedly in hopes of signaling the quality of his produce. Similarly, when farmers in Spain started exporting their oranges and other fruits in the 1920s and 1930s, they began packing them in printed paper wrappers and custom-printed fruit crates because they discovered that these branding efforts helped to increase sales. Later, when stickers were created, they began placing branded stickers directly onto the fruits. In general, the designs became less elaborate and more focused on bold colors and typography following World War II. For a while, produce stickers were mostly used for marketing purposes, but over time, the function of these stickers evolved and they are now used to convey product information via PLU codes, or product look-up codes. In the 1990s, farmers and supermarkets began using PLU codes printed on produce stickers to help distinguish between different items. PLU codes can reveal where a fruit or vegetable comes from, whether it was grown conventionally or organically, and how much it should cost. These stickers also make it easier to trace items if a recall is needed. The PLU numbers are assigned and standardized by the International Federation for Produce Standards and are the same in many countries all over the world. They’re printed on nontoxic stickers and attached to produce using nontoxic glue so that it’s easy to get information about individual pieces of produce and easy to cashiers to ring up the items. With some countries recently banning plastic produce stickers, such as France, some suppliers have begun experimenting with laser-etching PLUs and brand names directly onto produce. However, produce stickers are currently still a key part of today’s grocery store supply chain.