Incoterm
FCA for citrus, and why the place decides
Free Carrier hands the fruit over to a carrier the buyer appoints, cleared for export. Which side loads, and where the risk changes hands, follows the place written next to the three letters. At the seller's premises the seller loads and the risk moves there. Anywhere else the fruit arrives on the seller's vehicle and comes off at the buyer's cost.
The figures
| Incoterms 2020 group | Rules for any mode of transport |
|---|---|
| Delivery at the seller's premises | Seller loads the buyer's vehicle |
| Delivery at any other named point | Seller arrives loaded, buyer unloads |
| Export formalities | Seller |
| Carriage | Contracted by the buyer, unless agreed otherwise |
| Added in the 2020 edition | Optional on-board bill of lading arrangement |
What it changes on an order
You are sending your own truck
The address and the time slot are the substance of this term. An FCA line with a city and no street, or with a street and no window, leaves the two sides holding different pictures of the same handover, and the fruit sits in the middle of it.
Your bank works with documentary credits
A credit that calls for a shipped bill of lading used to push buyers into a sea rule they did not need. The 2020 edition lets the parties agree that the carrier issues that document to the seller, so the credit can be met without moving the handover to the ship.
You consolidate from several shippers
Handover at a groupage warehouse and handover at the packhouse are two different terms wearing the same letters. The first leaves the seller responsible for the run into the warehouse and the waiting there, and the second ends the seller's part at the gate.
What this note does not settle
- Nothing here confirms that we work on Free Carrier, or from which loading point. Those are pending with the grower and the packhouse, and this note is about the rule and not about our terms.
- Temperature is outside the rule. Pulp temperature at handover, pre-cooling and the setting the reefer runs at are agreed in the sale contract and the carriage contract, and neither of them is the incoterm.
- The rule does not price waiting time. If your vehicle arrives outside the agreed window, who pays for the delay is a matter for your contract with the carrier and with us.
Source: ICC Incoterms 2020 rules
An address, a time, and who touches the pallet
Free Carrier is two deals wearing the same three letters, and the named place decides which of them you bought. Handover at the packhouse puts the loading on the seller and moves the risk as the fruit goes up. Handover anywhere else leaves the seller driving there, arriving loaded and stopping, with the unloading and everything after it sitting on the buyer.
So write the place properly. A street, a gate number where one exists, the window the vehicle is expected in, and the equipment available at each end. A contract line naming only a city has settled nothing, and the hole in it gets found by a driver at a locked gate on a Friday afternoon.
What the 2020 edition added for banks
Documentary credits are behind most requests for a sea term that nobody needs. A credit calling for a bill of lading marked on board used to push the handover out to the ship even when the cargo left the seller at a terminal gate. The current edition closes that loop: the parties agree that the carrier issues the seller such a document, and the credit is satisfied without pretending the handover happened at the quay.
This is an option and not an automatic right, and the carrier has to be willing to play its part. Raise it with your bank and your forwarder while the contract is still being drafted. A credit already issued costs money to amend, and fruit on a packing line does not wait for a bank to answer.
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.