Size code
Orange size 9, where the scale changes step
Size 9 is the first code whose floor sits barely clear of the code above it, where every step higher up the scale is wider. From here down the orange codes crowd together, and the practical consequence is that two neighbouring numbers describe boxes nobody tells apart by eye. Nothing of ours is graded this small.
The figures
| Size code | 9 |
|---|---|
| Diameter range | 62–70 mm |
| Varieties we pack in this size | None of ours is packed mainly in this size |
| Gap between this floor and the floor of size 8 | 2 mm |
What it changes on an order
You are specifying two adjacent codes
Asking for one of these and refusing the other creates a grading job worth more than the difference it buys. If the real requirement is a ceiling or a floor, write it as a diameter and let the packer sort to it.
You are reading a third party inspection
An inspection gauge and a hand gauge are different instruments, and at this spacing the instrument decides the result. Name the gauge in the contract and the report stops being a matter of opinion.
You are buying small fruit for processing
Sizing rules govern fruit supplied fresh to the consumer. Citrus destined for industrial processing sits outside the marketing standard altogether, which changes what a size code is even for.
What this note does not settle
- We grade nothing in this code, so what follows describes the scale rather than a product.
- The processing route mentioned above is a different trade with different paperwork, and nothing here should be read as an offer into it.
- Gauge accuracy and rounding are not settled by the standard. Two honest measurements of one fruit land on different sides of a line this narrow.
Precision the fruit does not have
Higher up the scale the steps between codes are wide enough to see across a table. Down here they are not. The scale keeps subdividing while the fruit stops cooperating, and what comes out is a set of numbers a document distinguishes and a warehouse does not.
This has a cost. Splitting an order across two codes at such spacing asks a grading line to sort to a tolerance close to its own error, and the work lands in the price whether or not anybody names it. Where the requirement is really a floor, write a floor.
The trade that sits outside these rules
The marketing standard covers citrus supplied fresh to the consumer. Fruit going to industrial processing is excluded from it by name, so the size scale stops being a legal instrument and becomes whatever two parties agree between them.
Buyers who move between the two trades carry habits across, and the size code is the habit that travels worst of all. Ask which set of rules a quotation belongs to before you set it beside another. We grade nothing at this code in either trade, and that is the whole of our 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.