Buying channel
Oranges for food service, priced per portion
A kitchen buys a cost per serving. Where the oranges go into an automatic squeezer, the machine fixes the diameter it will accept and the size code stops being a preference. Where they are cut by hand, what the chef is pricing is the number of portions a box yields, and the rind matters less because the customer never sees it.
The figures
| What it buys | Small deliveries, repeated, often through a distributor |
|---|---|
| What decides the size | The equipment, ahead of appearance |
| Format that fits | A box the kitchen can store and turn over quickly |
| What it prices | Servings or litres obtained per box |
| Storage at destination | Frequently unchilled, which shortens the order cycle |
| Question it asks first | How many servings does a box give |
What it changes on an order
You run juicing machines
Send the diameter range the machine accepts with your enquiry. It converts straight into a size band, and it turns a vague request for medium oranges into a specification a packhouse can actually fill.
Your storeroom is not refrigerated
Then the order cycle is set by how long the fruit holds at room temperature, not by how much you can afford to buy at once. Smaller and more frequent beats a full pallet that ages in a corridor.
You buy through a distributor
Your specification has to survive the middle step. Put the variety, the size band and the format on the order line, because a request for oranges alone is completed by whoever picks the stock that morning.
What this note does not settle
- We have no confirmed distribution service, delivery frequency or minimum drop. A route to a kitchen usually runs through a wholesaler or a specialist distributor, and that arrangement is not something this site can promise.
- Juice yield per fruit is not measured on our varieties. What a box gives in litres depends on the lot and on the machine, and it has to be tested rather than quoted.
- The accepted diameter range belongs to your equipment maker. Take it from the machine documentation, because a squeezer that jams on oversized fruit is not a fruit specification problem.
The machine writes the specification
Automatic squeezers accept a range of diameters and jam outside it, which turns a size band into a question of equipment compatibility. A kitchen that sends the range from its machine documentation gets a specification the packhouse is able to fill. A kitchen that asks for medium oranges gets whatever medium meant to the person picking that morning. The authority on that number is the machine manual.
Where fruit is cut or squeezed by hand, the question becomes yield per piece and portions per box. Chefs cost a serving and work backwards from it, so what they need from a supplier is consistency between deliveries more than any particular size. Say which of the two situations yours is when you enquire, because they lead to different fruit.
Small drops and a warm storeroom
Most kitchens have very little chilled space and nowhere to put a pallet. That single fact sets the order cycle: fruit holds for a certain time at room temperature, and an order has to be small enough to be used inside it. Buying a larger quantity at a better price ends with oranges ageing in a corridor, and the loss is bigger than the discount.
The route into a kitchen runs through a distributor more often than not, and a specification has to survive that middle step. Write the variety, the size band and the format onto the order line, because an order that says oranges is completed by whoever is picking stock that morning, and their idea of the right fruit is not yours.
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.