Crowcery
A receipt prints each product name into a narrow fixed-width field, so almost
every name is abbreviated and many are cut off mid-word. PC GF CHKN NUGGE is
President's Choice Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets, chopped at 16 characters. This page decodes the
three parts: the brand at the front, the product words in the middle, and the missing end.
Because the name shares one narrow line with the price, and often with a product code and a tax flag as well. Each chain sets its own width and then simply truncates whatever does not fit. There is no cleverness to it: the name is not summarised, it is cut.
Measured across the 1,409 item lines in our collection, the widths differ a lot by chain:
| Chain | Longest item name we have seen | What that feels like |
|---|---|---|
| Costco | 12 characters | The most aggressive. Almost every name is cut. |
| Superstore, Loblaws, No Frills | 21 characters | Most names fit; long ones lose the last word. |
| Giant Tiger, Lawtons | 18 characters | Similar to the Loblaws family. |
| Sobeys, Dollar Tree | 30 characters | Roomy. Names are often close to complete. |
These are the longest names actually printed on the receipts we hold, not published field widths, which the chains do not disclose. A chain could allow more than we have happened to see.
Usually the brand, and usually a store brand. Chains put their own label first so it fits, which is why the same few prefixes appear over and over.
| Prefix | Means | Where | Real example |
|---|---|---|---|
| PC | President's Choice | Loblaws family, also stocked at Shoppers | PC GARDEN SALAD |
| NN, NNI | No Name | Loblaws family | NN CRISPY RICE |
| PCO | PC Organics | Loblaws family | PCO FLD GRNS SLD |
| ZIG | Ziggy's, the Loblaws deli brand | Loblaws family | ZIG PEPPERONI |
| KS | Kirkland Signature | Costco | KS JASMINE |
| GV | Great Value | Walmart | GV SIX BEAN |
| DI | Dempster's | National brand, several chains | DI GLZD SSME BN |
| HN | Honey Nut | Costco | HN CHEERIOS |
| ALMD BRZ, ALM BRZ | Almond Breeze | National brand | ALM BRZ UNSWT OR |
This is where people go wrong, and it is worth knowing before you guess. A two-letter block of capitals at the start of a line looks exactly like a brand prefix whether it is one or not.
| Looks like a brand | Actually is |
|---|---|
NS DEPOSIT | The Nova Scotia bottle deposit. A regulatory charge, not a product at all. Every province with a deposit prints its own version. |
APPLE GALA 4LB | LB is pounds, the pack size. At Walmart it can also stand for Lean Beef. It is never a brand. |
GF WHTE BREAD | GF is Gluten Free, a product attribute. |
MCCAIN SF CC | SF is Superfries and CC is Crinkle Cut. The brand here is McCain, at the front. |
The working rule: treat a short all-capitals token as a brand only when you recognise it as one. Geographic codes, pack sizes and product attributes all wear the same disguise.
Once the brand is stripped off the front, what remains is the product described in as few letters as possible. Vowels go first.
| You see | It means | Real example |
|---|---|---|
| GLTN FR, GF | Gluten Free | GLTN FR MIL QUIN |
| ORG | Organic | KS ORG PASTE |
| UNSWT, UNSWEET | Unsweetened | SILK ORG UNSWEET |
| CHKN | Chicken | CHKN WING SPLIT |
| BRST | Breast | CHK BRST BNL S |
| BNLS | Boneless | CHK BST BNLS |
| LRG | Large | LRG BLBRY DANISH |
| BLBRY | Blueberry | LRG BLBRY DANISH |
| STRBY | Strawberry | PC STRBY LEMON |
| MANG | Mango | PC LEMONADE MANG |
| ALMND | Almond | CDBRY ALMND FMLY |
| YGRT | Yogurt | PRBTCS YGRT PLN |
| GRN, GRNS | Green, or Greens in a salad name | PCO FLD GRNS SLD |
| NDL | Noodle | CHICKEN NDL SOUP |
| GLZD | Glazed | DI GLZD SSME BN |
| SF / CC | Superfries / Crinkle Cut, both McCain product lines | MCCAIN SF CC |
| BRD CKN BR | Breaded Chicken Breast | PC TC BRD CKN BR |
| PRSCIUTO | Prosciutto, simply misspelled to fit | SD PRSCIUTO 300 |
Because truncation happens at the character limit, with no regard for word boundaries. Three real lines from an Atlantic Superstore receipt in our collection, each cut at exactly 16 characters:
Decoded, in order: President's Choice Gluten Free Chicken Nuggets, with the final T of "nuggets" lost. Almond Breeze Unsweetened Un-something, where the second "UN" is the start of Unsweetened Original or Unsweetened Vanilla and there is genuinely no way to tell which from the receipt alone. And President's Choice Gluten Free Chicken Strips, which happens to fit exactly.
That middle line is the honest limit of any decoding, ours included. When a chain cuts a name mid-word, the information is gone from the paper. The only way back is the product code printed beside it, if the chain prints one.
The product words do. The brand prefixes do not. CHKN is chicken everywhere, because it is just chicken with the vowels removed. But a store-brand prefix belongs to its chain: PC means President's Choice in a Loblaws-family store, and a PC on a Costco receipt would be something else entirely. Read the brand prefix in the context of the store at the top of the receipt.
How confident are we here? The brand and product glossaries above come from our own reading of 1,409 item lines across 19 chains, and every example shown is a real line from that collection. Nova Scotia is heavily over-represented in it, though item naming is one of the few things that should not vary much by province. A few abbreviations we know of but have not yet seen on a receipt are deliberately left out of the tables above: MM for Mainstays at Walmart, GRNY SMI for Granny Smith, and SKNLS for skinless. Chains also change their naming, and no chain publishes its abbreviation list, so this is a decoding built from evidence rather than an official key. If you have a line we got wrong, or an abbreviation that stumped you, send it to support@crowcery.com.
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