Commercial grade
Class II citrus, and what it does not loosen
Class II drops the qualifier slight from most of the Class I list and adds rough skin, superficial healed skin alterations and a partial detachment of the peel. What it leaves untouched is size. The size tolerance and the minimum diameter are identical across all three classes.
The figures
| Definition | Fruit that does not qualify for a higher class but satisfies the minimum requirements |
|---|---|
| The condition | The fruit must retain its essential characteristics as regards the quality, the keeping quality and presentation |
| Added over Class I | Superficial healed skin alterations, rough skin, and a slight and partial detachment of the peel for oranges |
| Quality tolerance | 10 % by number or weight may fail both the class and the minimum requirements |
| Inside that tolerance | No more than 2 % in total may be affected by decay |
| Size tolerance | 10 %, identical to Extra and Class I |
| Minimum size for oranges | 53 mm, unchanged by class |
What it changes on an order
You buy on price for a channel that never shows the fruit
This is the class the standard wrote for exactly that, and its defect list is the only one that opens at the top. The saving is real, and so is the appearance you are accepting in return.
You assumed the lower class would relax the sizing
It does not, by a single millimetre. If the fruit is running small, dropping the class buys you nothing at all and the conversation belongs on the size code instead.
You resell against somebody else's specification
Class II fruit committed to a retail cosmetic standard is the worst of both worlds. Read the onward requirement before you fix the class, not after the pallets are on the road.
What this note does not settle
- Essential characteristics is the phrase holding this entire class together, and the standard declines to define it further. It gets read case by case.
- Class II is no licence for a load that has deteriorated. The minimum requirements still bind, subject only to the tolerance.
- We make no commitment as to which class any given week can fill, and the grower has confirmed none.
Source: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2429, Annex I Part B Part 2 (specific marketing standard for citrus fruit), UNECE Standard FFV-14 concerning the marketing and commercial quality control of citrus fruit
The undefined phrase holding the class together
Class II lets the rind take a beating. Defects in shape, defects in colouring, progressive skin defects, rough skin, healed alterations on the surface. The qualifier slight falls away from most of the Class I list. One condition survives all of it, and the whole class rests on it: the fruit must retain its essential characteristics as regards the quality, the keeping quality and presentation.
The standard then declines to say what essential characteristics are. It is read case by case, by inspectors and by the people arguing over a load, and the reading tends to settle on a practical question: can this fruit still be sold as what it is called? A rough, marked orange that is sound and travels is inside the class. One that has stopped being recognisable as sound merchandise has left it, however generous the defect list looks on paper.
Sizing is a separate decision from grading
The standard offers two ways to make a package uniform in size, and neither of them moves when the class does. You can name a size code, which fixes a diameter band, or you can cap how far diameters are allowed to spread between the smallest and largest fruit in the package. That second cap loosens in steps as the fruit gets bigger, and above a certain diameter it stops constraining anything at all.
Grading and sizing therefore run on separate tracks, and a specification has to set both. Dropping to Class II changes what the skin may look like and leaves the diameter exactly where it was. If a week is producing small fruit, the class is the wrong lever entirely and the conversation belongs on the size code, where the standard actually has something to say about diameter.
Who buys Class II on purpose
There is a market for this grade that has nothing to do with settling for less. A processor pressing juice is buying the inside of the fruit, and pays for a blemished skin exactly what it is worth to them, which is nothing. A caterer peeling into a pan is in the same position. In both cases a higher grade would be a premium paid for an attribute the buyer throws away.
What makes it work is saying so at the order rather than discovering it on arrival. A lot bought as Class II with the tolerances agreed is a clean transaction; the same fruit arriving against a Class I order is a dispute, and the difference between the two is a line on a piece of paper written before the lorry left.
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.