Crucially, the apples' packaging will not explicitly declare that they're genetically engineered -- to get that information, shoppers will have to scan a QR code with a smartphone.
Under strain information, Shoppers simply says sativa products "may cause less drowsiness than products labelled as 'indica'" while it notes that an indica "may cause more drowsiness than products labelled as 'sativa'sativa
Previous research investigating what information shoppers seek when purchasing groceries has used either lab-experiments or observed shoppers in supermarkets.
They target especially vulnerable demographics: impressionable children and low-income, low-information shoppers who lack the means and knowledge to make healthier food choices.
But Jason Kibbey, executive director of the coalition, said the goal was to give the information to shoppers, too, through a label or via the Web or apps.
Both Mr. Roselli and Mr. Saccheri insisted that the information their shoppers gathered was not used punitively, only to instruct and to improve service.
Thousands of sites offer opinions, reviews and comparative information for shoppers, and much of it -- like the reviews of products and merchants posted on sites like Epinions.com, BizRate.com and ConsumerReview.com -- comes from unpaid volunteers, the shoppers themselves.
To back up the pledge, "we're training the sales associates," Mr. Speranza said, to provide the levels of service and product information that shoppers would expect from the campaign's promises.
Big commercial applications will begin to emerge this year, he says; for instance, a German retail chain is using Wi-Fi in a pilot project to push information to shoppers depending on their location in a store.
Now, researchers at the Media Lab have come up with a new kind of very tiny barcode that could provide a variety of useful information to shoppers as they scan the shelves -- and could even lead to new devices for classroom presentations, business meetings, videogames or motion-capture systems.
They do it for the smell of freshly baked bread, which makes people hungry and thus encourages people to buy not just bread but also other food, including frozen stuff.Most of the information that shoppers are bombarded with is visual: labels, price stickers and advertising.
