Two years ago I wrote to all supermarkets (this is where the problem is) pointing out the problem and asking them to use biodegradable labels on their fruit - nothing happened.
Maybe Choice needs to get involved.
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If I get plastic labels on anything I stick it to a used plastic shopping bag or newspaper wrapping film. When I have a bagful I recycle it at Coles. They say they make garden furniture out of it and they have a park bench on display made of variegated plastic.
Ideally it would be paper and we could recycle it with the newspapers.
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I have lived most of my life without labels on fruit. These labels have been invented to annoy the customer. If apples are recalled the buyer knows if she has bought apples and can return them. It is not difficult for the checkout person to learn to identify fruit, .or if they canât the customer can tell them what it is, as I do now if I buy fennel or persimmon.
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My biggest gripe is that I wash each piece of stoned fruit before storing them in my fridge and nearly every time I attempt to peel the label off a piece, it breaks the skin on the fruit. That means the fruit deteriorates faster in the broken section as it goes brown. So now there are two main reasons for opposing these type of labels - environmental and preservation.
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Before eating, I wash the fruit & pull the label off .Robyn.
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I absolutely agree. they are a damn nuisance to pick off, and survive intact after a year in the compost. VERY annoying, and they do NOT have country of origin on them. I suppose someone will have to choke to death on one before they are banned.
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Just looked at a number of labels on fruit.
I wonder if the real reason for the labels is to meet Food HACCP requirements, namely,
Traceability and Recall.
All raw materials and products should be lot-coded and a recall system in place so that rapid and complete traces and recalls can be done when a product retrieval is necessary.
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At our fruit and veg market the produce comes from all over the place - including overseas. (It is not a farmersâ market unfortunately.) However, that doesnât mean they need labels. Fruit and veg are rarely labelled. It does mean the check-out person has to identify the variety of apple or mandarin or whatever. But I recall check-out operators in supermarkets used to do that years ago - before the little labels became ubiquitous. If my son as a 15 year-old check-out boy could learn the difference between a jazz and a jonathon through a plastic bag, the check-out operators of today can too.
Back at the markets, country of origin is on signs above the fruit bin. Iâm sure the stall owners know who the producers are. So tracing bad produce should not be an issue.
It would be great to have a campaign to get rid of these horrible labels. I can vouch for the fact that they never break down - years in the compost bin or veggie garden and they are as bright and shiny as ever. When I do get produce with the labels, I painstakingly remove them as soon as I get home to prevent them accidentally being put into the compost with the peel. But that still means they end up in land fill. Archeaologists of the future will be able to use them to tell who produced our fruit!
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I have been learning a bit from this thread and the research it encouraged. The stickers are not exactly what I originally thought as evidenced by the following.
Re the numbers on the labels - they are mostly about pricing. The 4 or 5 digit numbers are a Product Lookup Code and assigned randomly in a range. Organics start with 9 and GMO with an 8.
http://www.ifpsglobal.com/Identification/PLU-Codes
While US centric, âgenerallyâ is an operative word in the PLU, and interesting for some editorial comment (take it for what it might or might not be worth) about GMO producers reluctance to put their practices in front of consumers.
Note our labels show country of origin and thus comply with new labelling requirements
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/labelling/coo/Pages/default.aspx
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If HACCP was the case for fruit labels then all fruit would be labelled including individual grapes etc. No I am failed to be convinced it is nothing more than dumb marketing
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Not quite. Grapes when I was a kid were loose bunches in bins/shelf in a store, where now they are sold in the little carry bags. Bags containing one or more bunches.
Writing on the bags has information/codes to identify supplier and other supply informationâŠno different to the labels on individual fruits or bunches (say with bananas).
I do expect that part of the reason for labelling is for HACCPâŠno differently to dyes used on meat carcasses.
They donât need to be plastic which is the issue. They could easy be made from readily biodegradable materials such as paper or cottonâŠwhich would work easily as well (until an on skin solution like that found by Brendan Mays is adopted).
You can still buy loose grape bunches out of the growers box both at the supermarkets and at the green grocers, some supermarkets prepackage them into sealed bags only for the convenience of the customer and discourage consumption before they are weighed and paid for at the checkout.
For that mater you can buy nuts in bulk at green grocers, self serving the qty you choose.
So all this seems to still undermine the necessity of labels to meet HACCP requirements, argument.
I think the defenders of the fruit label need to concede it is merely another form of nuisance marketing.
I donât really have a problem with the little label itself, its the sticky glue it leaves behind that is the real issue (and the small hole left in the peel that affects the longevity of the item in the fruit bowl or fridge).
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It is my understanding that the major supermarkets have HACCP management systems whereby a green grocer or farmer market is unlikely to have such systems in place.
This is possibly why often fruit in the major supermarkets are labelled but independent green grocer or farmer market is a mixed bag (some are and some not).
I would expect that a supplier to the major supermarkets would place labels on all their produce whether or not it goes to a supermarket or an independent retailer.
You can walk into any major supermarket except maybe aldi and buy bulk loose grapes from the growers box without a bag with out stickers.
You sticker lovers just cannot accept the evidence that the use of sticks on fruit is are merely junk marketing.
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Where we live, none of the major supermarkets sell loose grapes. They are all pre-bagged.
We are the same and it has been a long time since we have seen them loose and bagless (we are in SE Qld). Even green grocers and markets have them baggedâŠoccasionally see a stall that doesnât but this is not the norm,
I try and minimise waste and the âlittleâ plastic bags containing grapes annoy me as they are a one use item which generally becomes waste. I have been known to take a bunch out of the bag from time to time to be weighed without the bag at the checkoutâŠbut it is a lost cause as the waste has already been generated.
From a fluff piece about the WA grape industry.
âA recent trend in marketing grapes is the use of bunch bags where fruit is packed into plastic bags at harvest rather than the traditional bulk loose pack. Bunch bags enhance presentation, are more convenient for consumers, and reduce wastage of grapes that fall off bunches, a real issue with some varieties.â
One may agree or disagree about them, but that seems to be the underlying reason.
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I only have one local farmerâs market and as a shift worker I seem to be working or sleeping for 3/4 of them.
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Technology is being developed that actually uses a laser to etch the label onto the skin, which is so cool!
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