Operational notes
The buyer’s guide to Spanish citrus
The things a professional buyer has to settle before an order and that nobody explains properly: what a size code fixes, what an incoterm covers on a citrus load, what to do when a pallet arrives wrong. Written by the grower, with the source named on every figure.
Size code
One note per size code, with the diameter band it fixes and which of our varieties fill it.
- Orange size 0, the largest code in the standard
- Orange size 1, and why a clementine 1 is smaller
- Orange size 10, and the four smallest codes
- Orange size 11, and grouping three codes in a bag
- Orange size 12, the cleanest break on the scale
- Orange size 13 and the legal minimum diameter
- Orange size 2, and how far it overlaps size 1
- Orange size 3, and the uniformity bracket it sits in
- Orange size 4, and what it means on a purchase order
- Orange size 5, and the codes its edges touch
- Orange size 6, the smallest we pack routinely
- Orange size 7, the last code our range reaches
- Orange size 8, and the tolerance behind the label
- Orange size 9, where the scale changes step
Packing format
The packing formats and what each one implies for the pallet and for the channel it suits.
- Boxes on a euro pallet, and the height question
- The industrial pallet, and when it pays its way
- The 10 kg box, and the weight you trade away
- The 15 kg citrus box, and what it sets
- The 20 kg box, and the pallet it rebuilds
- Mesh bags of oranges, and who owns the label
- Orange trays, where the count fixes the weight
- A pallet that mixes sizes or varieties
- Net kilos off a full pallet, format by format
- Exchange pallet or one way, and who pays
- Gross and net on a pallet, and which paper carries which
- How high a pallet of oranges can be stacked
- Pallet ventilation, and the warm core inside
- How many pallets fit in a European truck
- Securing a pallet of fresh fruit for the road
Commercial grade
Extra, Class I and Class II: what each permits and what it means when a claim is raised.
Defect and tolerance
What each defect is, how the marketing standard treats it, and whether it is grounds for a claim.
- Alternaria black rot, and the navel it enters by
- Anthracnose, and the dead wood above the fruit
- Chilling injury, the defect no class tolerates
- Creasing on oranges, and the flesh underneath
- Handling damage on citrus, healed or fresh
- Oleocellosis, the mark that surfaces after loading
- Rind dehydration, and who is holding the fruit
- Scale on the rind, and the insect still on it
- Sour rot, and the box it works its way through
- Split oranges, and the word that settles it
- Sunburn on oranges, and the adjective that grades it
- Thrips ring scar, and the display it empties
- Water spot on oranges, and the rain behind it
- Wind scar on oranges, and why the norm permits it
Month by month
What is on the tree in this growing area month by month, including the months when nothing of ours is.
- Spanish oranges in April, our last month
- Spanish oranges in August, counted on the tree
- Spanish oranges in December, the settled month
- Spanish oranges in February, and what is gone
- Spanish oranges in January, all four in window
- Spanish oranges in July, and what fills the gap
- Spanish oranges in June, where the window shuts
- Spanish oranges in March, the handover month
- Spanish oranges in May, after ours have gone
- Spanish oranges in November, the month it starts
- Spanish oranges in October, and what opens
- Spanish oranges in September, before it starts
Incoterm
Each incoterm applied to a citrus load leaving Valencia: who loads, who insures, where the risk passes.
Shipping document
Who issues each document, what the receiver checks, and what happens when one is missing.
- When a citrus load needs a certificate of origin
- The CMR note, and what signing it does
- The commercial invoice on a citrus shipment
- The delivery note, and what a signature proves
- Lot traceability on a pallet of oranges
- What a packing list is for on a citrus order
- The phytosanitary certificate, and who needs one
On arrival
What to do when a load arrives and something does not match the order.
- Claim deadlines on a road load, and when they start
- A defect that shows up days after unloading
- Documenting a citrus claim so it can be used
- The label does not match what was ordered
- The pallet leans and the bottom boxes are crushed
- A document is missing and the truck is at your dock
- Two sizes of orange inside the same box
- Mould in one box, and the rest of the pallet sound
- Net weight does not match the packing list
- Checking a pallet of oranges on arrival
- The size on the pallet is not the size ordered
- The load did not travel at the agreed temperature
- The fruit is sound and the boxes are wet
Buying channel
What each buying channel asks for, and the question it puts first.
Trade term
The terms that appear on an order, an invoice or an audit, and what each one does and does not cover.
- Paying for an orange order in advance
- BRCGS Food Safety, and the grade on it
- Break of load, and the carriers it multiplies
- Brix on a citrus order, and why it is not sweetness
- Albedo, the rind you buy inside the diameter
- The cold chain on a citrus load, and who sets the number
- Colour index and the legal test that disagrees
- Controlled atmosphere, and why citrus mostly skipped it
- Degreening, and what ethylene actually changes
- The drencher, and the treatment nobody sees
- Field heat, and the temperature that travels in the box
- Flavedo, and why one thin layer decides a sale
- Granulation, the fault that survives every check
- The maturity ratio, and what a rising number hides
- Residue limits on citrus, and the peel problem
- Precooling, and the temperature a reefer inherits
- The traceability lot, and how far back it reaches
- Wax on citrus, and where it has to be declared
- A delivery window, and what the law leaves open
- A letter of credit for a truck of oranges
- Documents against payment on a road load
- Organic certification on Spanish citrus
- GLOBALG.A.P., and how to check a certificate
- GRASP, the add-on that cannot stand alone
- IFS Food, and the retailers who own it
- Open account, and who sets your credit limit
- Payment deadline for perishable produce
- The reference sample, and the lot behind it
- SMETA, and who pays for a social audit
- l'Horta Nord, where these oranges are grown
- Weight tolerance, and the batch behind it
Talk to the grower
Tell us the variety, the sizes and the delivery week you need. You get a delivered price and what we can commit to in writing, from the person who picks the fruit.
The grower handles enquiries. Response times are still to be confirmed.