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UK-based food and clothing retailer Marks & Spencer have been working to improve the environmetal sustainability of the company for over a decade. In their latest step to become more eco-friendly, they're getting rid of the little stickers on their fresh produce. As of this week, their avocados will have relevant information (product code, county of origin, best-before date) etched into the skin by a laser.
M&S expect to save 10 tones of paper and 5 tonnes of glue a year by tattooing their avocados in this way. Stickers don't stick well to avocado skins in the first place, so this solves a practical problem as well as reducing sticker waste.
Apparently barcodes couldn't be read reliably on an avocado, due to the uneven reflective surface of the avocado skin, but it may be practical for other produce in the future.
(Score: 3, Funny) by kaszz on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:47AM (4 children)
Now we just need to wait for the followup article that finds that laser burning makes vegetables carcinogenic ;-)
(Score: 1) by petecox on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:50AM (2 children)
I used a ballpoint pen to write my name on my bananas.
People at work thought I was weird.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:58AM
Unless the ink is poisonous and there's a osmosis process inside the banana. What you did makes perfect sense. Too many people in IRL that bothers others without consulting the brain first ;)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:19AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 20 2017, @05:40PM
Now we just need to wait for the followup article that finds that laser burning makes vegetables carcinogenic ;-)
Depending on how much of the produce is burnt it might. [theconversation.com] (though it's highly unlikely of course)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:06AM (2 children)
ALDI removes labels, dumps produce into a giant bin full of flies.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:09AM
The flies are free, right?
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:46PM
Are you sure you weren't at the dumpster?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:06AM (3 children)
Tell us about how they got rid of shirt tags by printing the inside of the shirt. This laser trick is just like that. I'm wearing a shirt right now with care instructions printed on the inside.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:42AM (1 child)
Ugh, worst innovation ever. It's so hard to find shirts these days with proper tags, that you can remove, rather than those awful itchy miserable unremovable printed-on tags.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:53AM
Most subtle troll ever.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:23PM
I'm not sure that's as innovative. Many t-shirts are sold with logos or patterns printed on the front, so it seems straight-forward to use that existing technique to attach sizing information and cut the costs of a fabric label. In contrast, etching lasers weren't already in use in the produce industry.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:17AM (1 child)
The Nazis wrote numbers on the skins of Jews.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 20 2017, @05:41PM
Is this a "pieces of flair" reference?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:23AM (7 children)
Pretty much all -processed- food has barcodes.
Where I am, even some (though, not all) fruit and veggies have stickers (with barcodes).
The headline would have been more effective if it said "produce" instead of "food".
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:42AM
Used to be the bar codes did not get applied to anything you would eat whole like apples. Now that barcode sticker is made from food grade rice paper and digestible glues and ink. It is officially food.
These are put on at the fruit distribution centers, not at the stores. So it seems to me there would be little in the way of savings to the store.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday June 20 2017, @05:15AM (2 children)
There are small barcodes on some of the produce at the stores I use, but they don't seem to work with the stores' scanners — instead they enter the four-digit number printed on the sticker into the register.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:27PM (1 child)
I worked at Aldi for a while between other jobs. Some produce in packets has a barcode, but you are still expected to memorize about a hundred 1, 2 or 3 digit codes to key in. Years later, bananas are 18, avocados are 10, 11 or 12 depending on type. Pink lady apples are 2, jazz apples are 3. forgot the rest.
The bastards at head office would regularly change them anyway, and the manager would give you a new A4 sheet covered in 6 point font each week to memorize.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:46PM
They standardized the numbers here. Most if not all grocery stores use the same ones. Bannanas are 4011, Green grapes are 4022. etc
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:22AM (1 child)
The clue was in the headline that you complained about - notice the mention of swapping labels for lasers?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @10:30AM
When I had my first job (in a grocery store), actual prices were put on items.
That was typically done with stamps that used ink.
Years later, there were "price guns" that made paper labels that were stuck on items.
I go to a discount store that still does this for all items.
Years after that, came barcodes and price scanners that use lasers.
So, no. Putting "lasers" and "labels" in the headline did not make it clear for me and using "produce" instead of "food" would have helped.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:34PM
The second sentence of the summary reads:
In writing the title, I was concentrating on how to describe the company M&S for a non-British audience. "Produce Retailer" didn't enter my mind, as I don't think it's a good (effective) description of the company, even ignoring the clothing side of their business. (Would you describe, say, Tesco or Loblaws as a "produce retailer"?
So, yeah, I went for a catchy title, and clarified in the summary. It's not as bad as clickbait, surely?
(Score: 2) by Bill Evans on Tuesday June 20 2017, @10:28AM (1 child)
I'm waiting for the day they use lasers to etch advertisements on russet potatoes.
(Score: 3, Funny) by richtopia on Tuesday June 20 2017, @12:35PM
"Look, I can see Jesus' face in my potato!"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday June 20 2017, @06:19PM
I welcome this move and hope to see US retailers do the same. The need to dispose of a sticker before I can eat my produce is one of the small inconveniences that contribute to junk food being more convenient than tastier and healthier fresh fruit.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday June 20 2017, @09:21PM (1 child)
How efficient are the lasers, and how are they generating the electricity to use them?
I really wish we as ordinary consumers were not so mired in "Eco" and "Organic" as marketing. If we weren't so concerned with "looking" eco I imagine it wouldn't be much of an issue.
Unfortunately, we can trust this Administration least of all to provide us with impartial facts regarding ecology and climate.
One thing I frequently wonder:
Is rinsing the milk jug out with water to recycle the plastic worth the fresh water it takes? (As my city recycles we are told to clean all recyclable plastics before disposal in appropriate bins.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @03:44AM
[Is it] worth the fresh water it takes?
It appears that you don't have a lawn/garden/flower pots.
Gray water [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]