PLU - small sticker, big frustration

You know this tiny stickers that each of your fruit\vegetable has ? They called PLU - Price look up, and I don't know about you, but 3 out of 5 always causing me issues. It doesn't go off that easy, or sticker off, but there is still glue behind it, trying to wash it off, and instead feels just like I'm spreading it all over. Yes, according to FDA regulations those stickers along with glue are edible, and won't harm you, but lets face it, not all company follows FDA guidelines, and even if they do, I don't want to eat damn glue. So what to do?

Possible Solutions

In todays reality there should be better way, I see few possible options:

  • Laser engraving: Instead of stickers, we can have some small QR engraved on apple or whatever you buy.

  • Organic printing ink: Some companies already developing food-save ink from natural juices of grape skin and beets. This ink washes off easy and don't leave anything behind

  • AI recognition: Most modern phones can already tell difference between an apple and an orange - so why can't our supermarket checkouts? Advanced image recognition could identify not just type of fruit, but even its variety, without need for any physical labeling. Some stores are already testing systems where AI automatically identifies produce at checkout.

The Human Cost

There was TV show I watched about restaurant kitchen workers, and chef would assign employee to take off stickers from bananas, and when asked what's the point answer was "For world balance - on another side of globe some person wasting all this time putting this stickers". I assume it's very time consuming process of creating & putting all this stickers on produce, and it seems to be very wasteful to do all this just to stick information we only need for checkout.

Looking Forward

All this technology exist -it just matter of implementing them. I believe when I will be old I will be telling younger generations about "there was era where every product had small annoying sticker on it". And of course I will be labeled "weird grandpa who talks about stickers"…