Build a 'reverse' hash of category to code.

#!perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my %categories = ("FUR-BO 10001798" => 'Furniture',
                  "FUR-CH 10000454" => [ 'Furniture' , 'Chairs'],
                  "OFF-LA 10000240" => [ 'Office Supplies' , 'Labels']
+,
                  "OFF-ST 10000107" => [ 'Office Supplies' , 'Storage'
+],
                  "OFF-AR 10003056" => [ 'Office Supplies' , 'Art'],
                  "TEC-PH 10001949" => 'Technology Phones',
                );
 
# build reverse hash text=>code
my %code = ();
for my $code (keys %categories){
  my $cat = $categories{$code};
  if ( ref($cat) eq 'ARRAY' ){
    $cat = join ' ',@$cat;
  }
  if (exists $code{$cat}){
    die "Duplicate code for $cat\n";
  } else {
    $code{$cat} = $code
  };
}  
print Dumper \%code;

my @items = ('Furniture',
'Furniture Chairs',
'Office Supplies Storage',
'Office Supplies Art',
'Office Supplies Labels');

search($_) for @items;

sub search {
  my $text = shift;
  printf "Code for %-30s is %s\n",$text,$code{$text};
}
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