On arrival
Net weight does not match the packing list
Establish which weight you measured before anything else. Gross is the whole pallet, tare is the wood, board and film, net is the fruit. Citrus also loses water in transit, and the carriage rules treat ordinary wastage as a risk of the goods. A shortfall you have to hunt for is a different animal from one you can see.
The figures
| Gross | Fruit, packaging and pallet together, as weighed off the vehicle |
|---|---|
| Tare | Pallet, boxes, liners, corner posts and film. Not fruit |
| Net | Fruit only. The figure a packing list states |
| Under the carriage rules | Normal wastage in transit is listed among the special risks (CMR, article 17.4.d) |
What it changes on an order
You pay by weight
An invoice built on a declared net and a payment built on a weighed gross will never agree, and the difference is packaging. Fix which figure the price attaches to when the terms are agreed, not when the first query arrives.
You weigh on a warehouse platform
Platform scales and weighbridges are calibrated to different tolerances, and a query raised on an uncalibrated platform gets answered with that fact. Know what your own equipment is certified to before you use it in a dispute.
You take delivery at the end of a long run
Time and dry air in the trailer both widen the gap. Where the same route shows the same small shortfall every week, that is a pattern worth discussing with the packhouse rather than a problem with one load.
What this note does not settle
- This explains how the three weights differ and what the carriage rules say about wastage. It is not advice on liability, short delivery or price adjustment.
- There is no published figure for how much weight a citrus pallet loses on a given route. It moves with the fruit, the packing, the time and the air, and anyone quoting a single number is guessing.
- Our kilos per pallet are sector orders of magnitude and not a packing list. The real figures come from the packhouse for the specific load.
Source: Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR)
Three numbers get called the weight
Gross is everything that came off the lorry. Tare is the wood, the board, the film and the corner posts. Net is the fruit. A pallet of citrus carries a serious amount of packaging, and a warehouse that weighs the pallet and compares the figure to a net on a packing list is comparing two different things in good faith.
So the first move on a weight query is to establish which of the three you have measured and which one the document states. A surprising share of these end there, with nobody at fault and a tare that was never subtracted.
Fruit loses water, and the rules know it
An orange is mostly water behind a rind that breathes. It leaves the packhouse heavier than it arrives, and the carriage convention treats ordinary wastage in transit as a risk of the goods rather than a failure of the carrier. The longer the journey and the drier the air in the trailer, the wider that gap opens.
None of which makes a shortfall acceptable, because the interesting question is scale. A difference you have to look for is the fruit breathing. A difference you can see in the pallet count is not, and the way to tell them apart is to weigh several pallets rather than argue about one. Where the shortfall is real, it is the packing list that has to be reconciled, box by box, against what is actually on the floor.
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.