Buying channel
Oranges for a juice plant, bought by the kilo
A processing plant weighs what arrives and works out what it gives. Fruit labelled as intended for processing sits outside the marketing standard, so the size codes and the commercial class that run the fresh trade drop out of the order. Yield and the sugar to acid balance take their place, and those are measurements we do not yet hold on our own fruit.
The figures
| What it buys | Fruit by weight, delivered to the plant |
|---|---|
| Marketing standard | Not applicable to produce labelled as intended for processing |
| What is measured instead | Juice yield, soluble solids and acidity |
| Our measured figures | Pending, nothing measured on our own fruit |
| Rules on the juice itself | Directive 2001/112/EC, as amended |
| Question it asks first | Yield per tonne, and the price delivered at the gate |
What it changes on an order
You price against a laboratory result
Agree who samples, where and when. A reading taken at loading and a reading taken at the gate describe the same fruit after a different journey, and the gap between them is money on every load.
Your line runs to a schedule
Processing buys continuity of tonnage more than it buys any one lot. The grower has to know the weekly rhythm you need before saying anything useful about whether it can be met.
You watch the fresh market for a reference
Fresh prices and processing prices move for different reasons and rarely track each other. A fresh reference tells you what the fruit could have earned elsewhere, and very little about what a plant should pay for it.
What this note does not settle
- We have no processing outlet, no industrial programme and no bulk handling confirmed. This note explains how the channel buys, and it is not an offer to supply it.
- Sugar and acid figures on our varieties are unmeasured and declared as pending on the datasheets. Without them nobody can quote a yield, and an estimate here would be a number with nothing behind it.
- What a finished juice may be called and what it may contain is the juice maker's compliance question. The fruit specification does not settle it.
Source: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2429, Directive 2001/112/EC relating to fruit juices
When the size code leaves the order
Fruit labelled as intended for processing sits outside the marketing standard, and the size codes and commercial class that the fresh trade speaks in go with it. What reaches a plant is weighed, sampled and turned into litres, so the order stops describing how the fruit looks and starts describing what it holds. A buyer moving between the two channels changes vocabulary as well as price.
None of that leaves the fruit unregulated. Food safety, residue limits and traceability apply exactly as they do on the fresh side, and the rules on what a finished juice may be called are the processor's own to meet. The exemption covers grading and presentation, and it stops there.
The number we cannot give you yet
A plant prices on yield and on the balance between sugar and acid, and both are unmeasured on our varieties. The datasheets say so instead of filling the gap with a range borrowed from the literature, because a borrowed figure gets quoted back at the weighbridge. Anyone buying for processing should treat that blank as the main thing this page has to tell them.
The way past it is a trial rather than a document. A sample lot measured by the plant, at a stated point in the season, settles what a full campaign would be worth to both sides. Until that has happened, a conversation about tonnage is a conversation about something nobody has measured.
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.