Swedish Supermarket Chain Brands Organic Fruits and Vegetables with a Freakin’ Laser

I find those little stickers that you get on your fruit and vegetables to be very annoying. When I try and peel them off they always seem to leave a residue that is hard to wash off. I often end up just shaving off a bit of whatever the vegetable is to remove the residue and go on about my business. Those stickers just don’t sit well with Swedish supermarket chain ICA.

Back in December, ICA started to experiment with a new laser “natural branding” process that replaces those stickers on its organic produce. The laser is a low-energy carbon-dioxide laser that removes some of the pigment from the outer skins of the fruits and vegetables creating something that looks like a tattoo.

That label includes the name of the product, country of origin, and code number for the cashier to ring up. The big upside to these tattoos is that you can’t somehow grab the only potato in the bin that has somehow slipped the surly bonds of its little sticker leaving you with a baffled clerk that doesn’t know a sweet potato from a Russet.

The store hopes that the process will cut down on the need to use stickers and reduce the packaging needs in its stores. ICA has 1,350 locations across Sweden and if the process works it plans to roll the laser branding process out to all its locations. The first items to be branded were sweet potatoes and avocados since the skins aren’t normally eaten and the rascally items tend to ditch their stickers.

The process can be used on lots of fruits and vegetables though including broccoli, eggplants, and melons. ICA says that the laser branding process does not penetrate the skin or affect the flavor of the produce.