Packing format
Gross and net on a pallet, and which paper carries which
Net is the fruit, tare is everything holding it up, gross is what the vehicle carries. A citrus pallet has a substantial tare, because the wood alone weighs more than a box of oranges before a single carton goes on it. Commercial paperwork prices the net and transport paperwork declares the gross, so the two figures differ by design.
The figures
| Net | Fruit only, the figure a packing list declares |
|---|---|
| Tare | Pallet, boxes, liners, corner posts, film and any top frame |
| Gross | Fruit, packaging and pallet together, as the vehicle carries it |
| Euro pallet, empty | About 25 kg before any fruit is loaded |
| Industrial pallet, empty | Greater, and varying, because the base has no single construction specification |
| What the consignment note asks for | The gross weight of the goods, or the quantity otherwise expressed (CMR, article 6.1.i) |
| What no instrument prescribes | The packing list, which is where the net usually lives |
What it changes on an order
You are booking freight yourself
A carrier plans against gross and an order is written in net. Send both, with the pallet count beside them, and the vehicle that turns up will be the right one for the load.
Your goods in team weighs pallets
A pallet weighed whole and an invoice written in fruit will never agree, and the whole gap is packaging. Give the dock the expected tare so the first reading can be read against something.
You ship on a weight limited route
Tare is dead freight paid at the same rate as the fruit. On a full vehicle the packaging displaces saleable kilos, which is one of the few places where a packaging decision turns directly into money per delivery.
What this note does not settle
- The tare of one of our pallets is not something we can state. The pallet has a published weight; the boxes, liners, posts and film on top of it depend on a packing arrangement that is still open with the grower.
- This explains which weight belongs on which document. It says nothing about liability for a shortfall, and it is not advice on how a claim would be decided.
- Weights taken at two ends of a journey differ for reasons beyond packaging, including moisture lost in transit. Separating those causes is a different question from separating gross and net.
Source: Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR)
The tare is an object you can weigh
Between the fruit and the weighbridge sits a stack of things that are not fruit. Wood, board, liners, corner posts, film, sometimes a plastic top frame. None of it is a rounding error, and all of it counts as tare on the day somebody bothers to measure it. Most shipments never measure it, which is how one pallet acquires two weights that both get written down.
Our catalogue states a weight for one pallet base and declines to state one for the other, which is the honest answer when an object has no single construction specification behind it. Anyone who needs a dependable gross figure has to ask the shipper to weigh a finished pallet, rather than assembling one from published parts and hoping the total survives contact with a weighbridge.
One load, two correct numbers
Each document on a citrus load asks for a different weight, and each is right. Commercial paperwork that prices the fruit works in net, because nobody buys cardboard. Transport paperwork works in gross, because the vehicle carries everything. Reading one against the other and calling the difference a shortfall is the most common false alarm on a receiving dock.
Naming the weight every time you write one down is a habit worth building. Say net when you mean fruit and gross when you mean the vehicle, and put the pallet count beside both. It costs a word each time and it removes a whole category of query from the relationship.
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.