On arrival
The label does not match what was ordered
A citrus label answers to the marketing standard, not to your order confirmation, so the two documents were never written to agree. The marking names the packer, the origin, the class, the size and any post-harvest treating agent applied. Establish which of those five the standard obliges anyone to put there before you call the load wrong.
The figures
| What the marking must carry | Packer and dispatcher, nature of the produce, country of origin, class, size, and mention of the preserving agent or other chemical substances used at post-harvest stage |
|---|---|
| Whose name appears | The packer or the dispatcher, who need not be the seller. The name may be replaced by an officially issued code mark preceded by the ISO 3166 country code |
| How size may be expressed | As a size code, as a minimum and maximum diameter in millimetres, or as a count |
| When the outer package need not be marked | Where it holds sales packages that already carry the particulars and are visible from outside, provided nothing on it misleads |
| On a palletised consignment | The particulars appear on a notice placed in an obvious position on at least two sides of the pallet |
| Our own packer code and lot prefix | Not confirmed by the grower |
What it changes on an order
You sell the fruit on under your own name
An officially issued code stands in for a packer name on plenty of Spanish fruit, and it reads like a mismatch to anyone expecting a company. Look up the code before you treat a strange label as the wrong supplier.
Your own customer refuses a treatment
The preserving agent belongs on the package by law, which makes the label the one place a refusal can be checked on arrival. If your specification bans something, that line is where it is caught or missed.
The outer carton arrives blank
An outer that holds marked sales packages visible from outside is allowed to stay unmarked. Before anyone photographs an unlabelled box, open it and see what the units inside are carrying.
You ordered against an article code
Article codes, order references and delivery weeks are yours, and no part of the standard asks a packhouse to reproduce them. A label silent on them is complying rather than failing.
What this note does not settle
- This sets out what the standard obliges the marking to state. Whether a difference between label and order breaches your contract is a question for that contract, and nothing here answers it.
- A marking that says the right words can still sit on the wrong pallet. The label is evidence about the package it is stuck to, no further.
- We cannot yet tell you what marking would reach you. The packhouse code, the lot prefix and the post-harvest treatment are all unsettled with the grower.
Other things that go wrong at the receiving dock
The label is talking to an inspector
Two pieces of paper meet on your dock and neither was written for the other. Your order confirmation records what two companies agreed. The marking on the package is a declaration the packhouse makes to whoever turns up to check that the fruit complies with the standard, and the reader it was written for has never heard of your order. A good share of what looks like a discrepancy is that gap showing itself.
Work out which reader a line belongs to before you raise it. Class, origin and preserving agent are the standard speaking. Your reference number, your delivery week and your article code are the order speaking. Silence about the second group is not a failure of anything. A contradiction inside the first group is a different matter, and worth a call the same morning.
The line worth reading first
Of everything the standard puts on a citrus package, the mention of a preserving agent used after harvest is the entry that decides most. It is the only place where a chemical decision taken inside a packhouse becomes visible to a buyer who was not there, and it can be checked against a specification in seconds. Most people who read labels at all read the class and stop.
On our side that entry is the one we cannot preview for you. No post-harvest treatment has been confirmed by the grower, no packhouse code has been issued to us and no lot prefix has been agreed. Ask what the marking will say before the first pallet is built rather than after it lands, and hold us to the answer we give you.
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.