By RIPE, checked against a produce manager's cues. Published .
A four-digit code is a conventionally grown item, and the number itself identifies the commodity, the variety and the size, which is how the checkout tells a small Gala from a large Fuji. A five-digit code beginning with 9 means organic. That is the whole system.
What to check
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Check the boxthe same fruit at different sizes carries different codes, so two codes on two bins of what look like identical apples usually means a size or variety difference, not a quality one.
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Not a thingthe widely repeated claim that a five-digit code starting with 8 means genetically modified. That prefix was essentially never used commercially and the body that administers these codes retired it. If you see an 8-prefix code today it does not mean what the internet says it means.
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The codes exist for checkout and inventory. They are not a grading system, so a number does not tell you anything about how good the item is.
Common mistakeusing the sticker to judge quality. It tells you what the thing is and how it was grown, not whether it is any good. Nothing replaces picking it up.
Written by the team behind RIPE, a free app that reads a photo of the whole produce pile and rings the ripest ones. Every cue above is one you can check with your own hands, and it all works with no app at all.
You just read the cue for one piece. RIPE reads a photo of the entire display, draws numbered rings on the ones worth taking, and tells you why in the same plain words these guides use. Then it remembers what you brought home and nudges you before it turns.
It claims only what a camera can actually see. Every verdict ends by handing the last check back to your hands, which is the part these guides just taught you.
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