Top UK Supermarket Laser Prints Labels On Avocados To Reduce Waste (telegraph.co.uk) 219
One of the largest British retailers in London, M&S, is opting in for laser-printed barcodes to reduce paper waste. "The labels, which are etched onto fruit's skins with lasers instead of stickers, will save 10 tons of paper and five tons of glue every year according to M&S," reports The Telegraph. The labels will be etched into the skins of avocados, but "could soon be introduced to other fruit and vegetables and adopted by other supermarkets which are looking for new waste reduction techniques." The labels themselves include the shop logo, best before date, country of origin and product code for entering at the till. What's more is that the avocado's skin is the only area impacted by the lasers -- none of the fruit gets damaged. Bruce66423 writes: Print the information usually on the packaging to reduce waste. Excellent idea -- although the Aldi (the radically cheap, all own brand chain) alternative is to leave avocados untouched and get the cashiers to enter the code.
First the produce... (Score:2, Funny)
Employees and customers are next.
Hopefully apples too (Score:3)
Re:Hopefully onions too (Score:2)
I used to work with a guy who stuck them to the side of his monitor. Over time there were so many I reckoned the thing was ready to tip over. And that was before those fancy-pants flatscreen jobbies too.
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seen it too!
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Onions? I've never seen stickers on onions. By-the-piece onions (around here at least) come in three flavors - red, white, and yellow. Or by the bag, already labeled. I can see why you would need labels on apples as there are about a dozen varieties, even at small grocery stores. Most everything else is unique enough that you can tell what it is, although some cashiers seem to be clueless about "exotic" fruits like kiwis, dragonfruit, and mangos.
Re:Hopefully onions too (Score:5, Funny)
Kiwis aren't fruit, they're birds.
They're also endangered so you shouldn't be eating them either.
Or do you mean Kiwifruit?
Re:Hopefully onions too (Score:4, Informative)
In the UK Kiwis are fruit. They may alternately be flightless birds but we generally encounter the fruit more frequently.
Nobody here calls it kiwifruit.
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gooseberries, not strawberries.
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In the UK Kiwis are fruit. They may alternately be flightless birds
If you are in the UK, you should know that "alternately" means back-and-forth. As is "we meet on alternate Tuesdays", or "alternating current".
Alternatively, you may be speaking American.
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That space is important.
As, has been highlighted, is the iv in alternatively.
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if you really want to be pedantic, the technical term is Chinese gooseberry
If you wanted to be pedantic you should have used the term Actinidia deliciosa [wikipedia.org]. That is commonly known as the fuzzy kiwifruit, there are a few other species of the genus Actinidia that are also edible with various names [wikipedia.org].
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Found the person from Morganville!
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Onions? I've never seen stickers on onions. By-the-piece onions (around here at least) come in three flavors - red, white, and yellow.
No Vidalias? Pearl Onions? Shallots? Spring Onions? Ramps? Cippolini?... ummm... I'm sure there are more...
Re:Hopefully apples too (Score:5, Informative)
Very much so. Especially when there is a bit of glue residue left after the label has been removed. I do wonder, though, if this might effect the quality of the fruit. Avacados have thick skin, as do banannas, so they are probably ok. But apples, peaches and so on?
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Given your low uid, I understand where you're coming from. I vaguely remember something similar to what you mention.
Lately, I have noticed the glues used are basically edible. This has become a requirement in some areas.
Now, how about an edible bar-code sticker?
Then, we could have some serious talks about it on /.:
Edible bar-code sticker VS laser imprinted!
hehehe...
Re:Hopefully apples too (Score:4, Interesting)
Edible doesn't equate tasty. Even if they are flavorless, they have a texture that may clash with the fruit they're stuck to.
Yes, I know, very much a First-World problem, but let's be honest here, so is buying tropical fruits in areas where you dig in a pile of snow to find your car in Winter.
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Do you live in the Great White North?
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I'd like to look it up on the map, but I think it's frozen to the table and I can't find the pickaxe to get rid of the ice on top.
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The quality of the fruit already exists before the label is attached, so what you suggest is impossible.
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Causing a deterioration in quality is far from impossible.
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Well, since you're being cocks about an e vs an a, yes, it could effect the quality.
verb
verb: effect; 3rd person present: effects; past tense: effected; past participle: effected; gerund or present participle: effecting
1.
cause (something) to happen; bring about.
Laser printing an apple could indeed cause to happen the resultant quality of the fruit.
Fuck me, if you're going to be a pedant at least find something concrete on which to base it.
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Mind your head, I'm dropping a new shovel down. Looks like you've worn that one out.
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I blame the missing / on the close of the quote block.
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Especially when there is a bit of glue residue left after the label has been removed.
If you're afraid of the glue reside I suggest you never scratch the surface of an apple. You'll find supermarket apples are dipped in wax.
Re:Hopefully apples too (Score:5, Interesting)
No the apples (like basically every other vegetable and fruit) come on a styrofoam tray wrapped in polyethylene. M&S are basically the worst for excessive packaging so this is an absolute joke. They basically do not have loose produce, everything is prewrapped in usually at least 2 layers of plastic, not useful stuff we can get recycled at the kerbside either.
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The loose fruit and veg is usually near the lunch stuff in the standard M&S layout. They provide little plastic bags for you to put the loose fruit in, but it's up to you if you use them or bring your own or whatever.
MS packaging is better than most. They often use metal trays, for example, rather than plastic, which can be recycled and degrade faster. They cost 1p more but you can often use them to cook the food in too, saving on tin foil and baking tray liner.
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Ah that must be newish as they never used to have much in the way of loose produce (then almost all have gone this way too) as I'm sure wastage is higher with loose vs prepackaged. Loose veg is rarer these days, most everything is prepackaged :(
Foil vs CPET definitely isn't the way you put it however, I cannot recycle foil (including the 'single' use cooking trays) in kerbside recycling, I can do this for the CPET trays which are the alternative. No idea why you'd line anything with foil, the enamel trays I
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Mine used to do that. Don't worry, by the time they're 14 or so they'll grow out of it.
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Re: Hopefully apples too (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting question, is the time saved by not washing worth risking occasional food poisoning ?
Answer: only to those who have not yet experienced food poisoning, esp. Something serious like e.coli
Re: Hopefully apples too (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, not being able to tell the difference doesn't mean that over time there isn't one.
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I thought it is more to do with the layer of pesticide residue on the edible skins of fruits and vegetables.
That depends. Some fruits and vegetables are very difficult to clean properly and so, even if prewashed, can often contain harmful diseases and bacteria on the surface. Strawberrries, spinach, lettuce, and other such delectable treats should be thoroughly washed prior to consumption.
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There is almost always one who reads an entire novel that does not exist between the lines.
Yet amazingly words that actually were there were not read - "The labels, which are etched onto fruit's skins with lasers instead of stickers"
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If you burn things you quite often get carcinogens. I think I'd rather take my chances with the labels.
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Laserprinters don't use ink. They use toner, basically magnetic plastic dust.
Not too useful (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't work on majority of fruits. Most of the information they print is redundant. Nobody needs the shop logo. The country of origin is already printed on the bin. The product code can be memorized/looked up by the cashier. That only leaves the best-by date, which, in the case of avocados, isn't very reliable.
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Not useful to you, but none the less information that is relevant to many.
Why should someone sell a product if they can't display their name or logo on it?
How should a product code be memorised? It's hard enough to identify what kind of Apple an apple is within a bag. Quite often the cashier relies on the colour of the sticker they see so they know if they need to run it up as pink lady, red delicious, fuji, etc.
Now as for best by date. .... Wait what? You have best by dates on fruit? Like WTF? Ripeness dep
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Why should someone sell a product if they can't display their name or logo on it?
When you see the product, you're already in the fucking store, with logos on every single flat surface.
How should a product code be memorised?
Cash registers around here have a flip book attached, with color pictures, name and code. After a while, the cashier will automatically remember the most common items.
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Sounds like you live in the dark ages
Cash registers at the super markets around here have colour touch screens
Same with the self service checkouts. I tap "Look up item", "Fruit & Vegetables" and if it's not on that screen I press "A" for apple.
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Cash registers at the super markets around here have colour touch screens
I hope we can skip those, and go directly to cameras with image recognition to identify the fruit automatically.
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Since this is about food and supermarkets, you'll be burned at the steaks instead.
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When you see the product, you're already in the fucking store, with logos on every single flat surface.
And? That's an excuse to sell unlabelled product that no one can identify out of the store?
Cash registers around here have a flip book attached, with color pictures, name and code. After a while, the cashier will automatically remember the most common items.
I actually worked as a cash register. Identifying different types of apples is frigging hard from a picture alone even if the apples weren't presented in not clear plastic bags. Combine that with the fact that most supermarket checkout staff are incredibly poorly paid, often students who have not interest in career and don't give a shit about working at the job let alone have any affection for their company anything y
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That's an excuse to sell unlabelled product that no one can identify out of the store?
You need a store logo to identify an avocado ?
I actually worked as a cash register. Identifying different types of apples is frigging hard
How does laser printing avocados help with that ?
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I don't know how things are where you live, but here in Southern California, grocery checkers are expected to recognize all common produce and know the codes without looking them up. The more codes they know, the less time they waste looking them up and the more customers they can serve per hour.
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common produce
Oh I had to do the same. You know the easiest way to tell the difference between a fuji apple and a jazz apple? One has a blue label and the other a red / green one. Every so often we got some apples through without labels. In the interest of time store policy was spend no more than a few seconds trying to identify the type, if you can't the run it up as the cheapest to avoid any customer complaints if you get it wrong.
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Why should someone sell a product if they can't display their name or logo on it?
Someone should sell a product so that people could buy it.
How should a product code be memorised?
Not really needed, cashiers have small booklets with all the codes for vegetables/fruits, together with pictures of them.
Oh, yes, leave it to the trainee cashier to look up every fruit and vegetable code, rather than having it on the produce itself. I love wasting 10 minutes while she rings up the order in front of me.
Wasteful packaging (Score:3)
Some packaging is way over the top, and the vast majority of household waste at least for me is in the form of packaging...
Virtually no packaging can be reused, not much biodegrades and only some can be recycled through an energy intensive process of melting it all down again.
home as a dream (Score:2)
Fear not environmental haters (Score:5, Interesting)
My local supermarket started individually shrink-wrapping fruit for your environmentally destructive pleasure. :-(
Re:Fear not environmental haters (Score:5, Funny)
Must be bitch to eat raspberries that way.
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Mostly no labels where I live (Score:2)
Here they don't even bother labeling produce. You just grab what you want and the cashier or you at a self checkout lane enters in what it is, how many and the register weighs it to make sure everything is good. Of course people can game the system by saying their super organic gmo free fruit is just regular cheap fruit but as far as I can see most places operate on the honor system in that regard and everything works out fine.
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Of course people can game the system by saying their super organic gmo free fruit is just regular cheap fruit
That's alright! The grocery store is probably just putting the exact same fruit out in both places ;)
Wrong market (Score:2)
They are using these hand-held engravers in the wrong market.
The obvious best use is in cosmetic body modification. This, combined with normal tattooing, would be a powerful new addition to the body mod scene I think.
There is already scarification, which is done with hot brands or razor blades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This would be much quicker, and could do much more intricate designs on skin. Combined with traditional inking it could lead to very nice tattoos indeed.
Seriously- branding fruit? Wr
The barcode conspiracy nuts will have a field day (Score:3, Interesting)
No, not the "666", mark-of-the-beast guys. Yes, those too. But I'm talking about a more local conspiracy (frankly, I haven't met anyone outside of Europe that considers this real, shows that not all loonies that can come up with insane bullshit are located in the US), that those bars can act as some sort of "antenna" and absorb "frequencies" from various sources, which then affect the product, and of course in a negative way.
But luckily, there's hope! You can buy a Sharpie... ok, of course it's not a simple Sharpie, it's an energetically activated (insert more mumbo-jumbo woo here) for the low, low price of 30-50 bucks, and with this you can "connect" those bars and neutralize them that way.
By now some of makers of products aimed at ... let's say energetically challenged people have started to print their barcodes "neutralized" [wikipedia.org], pretty much saying "if they want it that way, it doesn't bother us, so ... let them have it...".
We're now at the point where they seriously demand hazard pay for people working the supermarket checkout.
So no, idiocy is by no means a privilege of the US, we can do it just as well!
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IIRC the epicenter of that loonie quake is Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
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No, not the "666", mark-of-the-beast guys. Yes, those too. But I'm talking about a more local conspiracy (frankly, I haven't met anyone outside of Europe that considers this real, shows that not all loonies that can come up with insane bullshit are located in the US), that those bars can act as some sort of "antenna" and absorb "frequencies" from various sources, which then affect the product, and of course in a negative way.
If you'd RTFS, you'd see they aren't printing barcodes, they're printing the Arabic numeral code for the item to enter by hand at the checkout. A barcode would not be practical on an avocado, due to their bumpy, dark skin. It would be hard to get straight lines of good enough contrast.
But I enjoyed your rant. Off-topic as it was.
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ARABIC numeral code?!
New conspiracy theory! The avocadoes carry encrypted messages to the terrorist cells!
The UK you say? (Score:3)
It reminds me of the joke about cigarettes packs (Score:2)
One guy walks into a store and asks for a pack of cigarettes. As usual, to discourage smoking, there is a warning printed on the pack:
"Smoking causes impotence"
The customer hands back the cigarette pack and tells the store clerk:
"This is disgusting! Can I have a pack on which it says that smoking cause cancer ?"
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A guy I know used to make a point of only buying packs that said they caused problems with pregnancy and then when someone criticized him for smoking he'd point out that THESE cigarettes were only hazardous to pregnant women.
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They do similar to coconuts (Score:3)
M&S brand coconuts with their logo, expiry date, and the till code as well. I don't know if it's laser'd or just plain old branding, but they've been doing that for a while now.
They still wrap the bloody things in shrinkwrap for reasons unknown.
Aldi (Score:2)
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I seem to think Aldi got their barcode scanners around 2000 or so. At least here in the US. Prior to that the memorized everything.
Live Pigs, too (Score:2)
Misleading headline.... (Score:2)
And what about the air pollution ? (Score:2)
Laser burning a barcode on an avocado skin will pollute the air with more CO2, you insensitive clod!
Let's do some math... (Score:2)
Object recognition (Score:3)
It really cannot be that difficult to make the checkout systems simply recognize unpacked food using computer vision....
Aldi no longer all-own-brand (Score:2)
Aldi hasn't been all-own-brand for years. They sell things like coca-cola here in the Netherlands...
personal scanner (Score:2)
In the Netherlands the new system is - you take your own hand-held scanner, go to the e.g. avocadoes, put say 5 in the basket, scan the price-label [you need only one per type of good] and you are done. No need to spend money laser etching the bar code on every fruit. Plus, no need for cashier. After the system was implemented I never looked back....funnily enough most people still prefer the interaction with the human - often I see long lines at the cashiers while the self-scanning machines stand idle...
So Dumb (Score:2)
They could just not label them like many other grocers. Try training your checkers better.
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"Will people then be sold in supermarkets too?"
Of course not, they'll be an app for that (like Uber). No one wants to pay retail for people!
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It's not about paying retail.
People don't want to foot the ongoing maintenance bill of owning one.
Renting is much easier
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Of course not. The DIY route is much more fun.
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As opposed to a large foreign retailer in London?
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I've planted three trees in the back yard, irrigated by rainwater.
It might take a decade to bear fruit but they're very easy to propagate from pit.
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Re:How about the dead childrens names ? (Score:5, Funny)
To produce three avocados, you need 264 gallons of water = 1m^3 = 1000 liters. That is more water than consumed by a child in one year.
Children consume a lot more water. For instance, if your child eats 1 avocado per month, they are already 4 times over that amount.
A modest proposal (Score:2)
In light of this information, I humbly propose that in order to preserve our most precious of natural resources, rather than growing avocados for human consumption, we adopt the more economical and ethical solution of raising children to be used for this purpose in their stead.
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I actually took the time to read the linked article, it seems the primary concern is that avocados are so profitable for small farmers that cartels and big agribusiness is muscling them to get their profits. As near as I can tell, the general idea is don't buy a profitable crop from an impoverished area because if you do it will give small farmers money and someone might steal the money from them. This does not seem fully thought out.
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because why?
So that the cashier enters the correct code, whether it's an expensive organic avocado or a somewhat less expensive regular avocado.
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You made that up. Stop lying.
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Next gen self-check will probably just recognize the avocados when you put them on the scale, you won't have to enter anything.
Produce recognition software seems like a logical progression. it may not be perfect at first, but it seems inevitable that they will come. And it may lead to fewer choices, unless similar looking choices can be priced the same.
The laser etching on the other hand, I think is a dead end. Not all fruits are suited for that, including gnarly avocados (the only kind I buy). So you still need other methods in place, and this will only be an additional method, adding to the complexity. And chefs who make de
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That'll be easy enough for telling an apple from a banana, but hard when telling a Gala apple from a Braeburn apple.
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A simple solution is to make them the same price.
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A simple solution is to make them the same price.
Yes (also mentioned in the GP). However, while this helps with getting the price right, it doesn't help with inventory control.
So it may have a side effect of stores reducing the choice. Which is already happening in some stores where customers are allowed to ring up their own produce purchases.
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I was at walmart last week and found apple turnovers in the bakery self-serve box. (unusual, they're typically in boxes of 4) Got some. Got to the register. Clerk spent time looking in the system, could not find the individual turnover product. Gave up, entered them under "german pastry" or something like that.
Other stores I go to and get say apples, they have that tiny little sticker on them. Get to the r
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Hmm. They are at the top end of the food supermarket scale though.
Not the highest volumes or revenue, but near to the top in quality and right at the top for some of their own brand foods. Their 'finish cooking it at home' chilli bread is utterly awesome.
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Light Amplification by Zimulated Emission of Radiation
- nice over-britishization
Laser spelt with a "Z" is not a British spelling, it's an American spelling. It is spelt with an "S" in Britain. The bastardisation of the abbreviation originates on the Western edge of the pond.