Trade term
Colour index and the legal test that disagrees
A packhouse colour index is an internal scale used to sort fruit by how far the skin has turned. The marketing standard does not use it. The legal maturity test for oranges is about juice content, so a lot can look ready on one scale and be measured by something else entirely.
The figures
| What a colour index measures | How far the skin colour has turned |
|---|---|
| What the legal test measures | Juice content of the fruit |
| Are they the same scale | No |
What it changes on an order
You are writing an order
Cite what you can check. A supplier's internal index is not portable and will not help you on arrival.
You buy early in the campaign
Colour and maturity separate most at the start of the season, and that is exactly when a colour-based specification misleads.
You are comparing suppliers
Two packhouses can run indices that do not align with each other, so the same number means two different fruits.
What this note does not settle
- We do not operate a colour index and do not publish one.
- This note explains why the two scales diverge. The values in any particular packhouse scale belong to that packhouse.
Other terms that turn up on the same paperwork
A packhouse number and a legal test that disagree
The citrus colour index is a single figure computed from three colour coordinates read off the rind with a colorimeter, running from negative values on green fruit, through zero at the turning point, to strongly positive on deep orange. It was built for one decision inside a packhouse: whether a batch needs a degreening chamber, and for how long. Research stations publish it cultivar by cultivar, which is how you come to know that one navel carries more colour than another at the same stage.
What the law asks for is something else entirely. Its requirement is that the degree of colouring be such that the fruit reaches the colour typical of the variety at its destination point, judged by a person looking at it. No instrument, no coordinates, no threshold to argue over with a printout in hand. A purchase line demanding an index value asks a packing line to verify a specification with equipment that is not in the building, and it asks in the wrong place, because the standard looks at the fruit where it lands.
Colour is a date, not a quality
The index moves with the season and with treatment, and neither of those is eating quality. Late cultivars carry less colour than early ones by nature, and a chamber full of ethylene moves the number without touching the sugar. Pale fruit in March outperforms vivid fruit in November more readily than buyers expect, and anybody whose customer rejects on appearance needs to know that before the pallet ships.
Use the index the way research uses it, as a way of comparing cultivars and following how a crop develops. For an order, describe the colour you need in the words the standard itself uses, and agree how a disagreement about it gets settled. Nobody has measured an index on our fruit; the published figures behind our variety pages describe cultivars, not lots.
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.