How to sort column by numbers in Numbers?

I would like to sort a column in ascending or descending order by number of objects in Numbers. However, despite setting the 'data format' as 'number' it doesn't understand the right order.

This is the ascending order of the column in Numbers:

1 apple
1300 oranges
16000 peanuts
671 mangos
91 potatoes

When I want it to be in this order:

1 apple
91 potatoes
671 mangos
1300 oranges
16000 peanuts

Please, see screenshot:

I think by adding a word to each number you've forced it to sort strictly alphabetically, which does make 1, 1300, 16000 etc 'correct'. Removing the letters should revert to natural sorting.

Moving the words to a separate column should fix it. An easy way to split the numbers out for searching is to add a column between B and C and set =LEFT(B2, SEARCH(" ", B2) - 1) as a formula there.