Trade term
Weight tolerance, and the batch behind it
In European law a weight tolerance belongs to a batch of prepackages, never to the single bag in your hand. Three rules run together: the batch average may not fall below the nominal quantity, few packs may miss by more than the tolerable negative error, and none by more than twice it. Loose fruit sold by the box falls outside all of it.
The figures
| Where the statutory tolerance exists | Prepackages made up by weight, under the EU average quantity rules. A box of loose fruit is not a prepackage |
|---|---|
| Rule one | The actual contents shall not be less, on average, than the nominal quantity |
| Rule two | Only a sufficiently small proportion of the batch may carry a negative error greater than the tolerable negative error |
| Rule three | No prepackage short by more than twice the tolerable negative error may bear the mark |
| Tolerable negative error, nominal quantity from 1,000 g to 10,000 g | 1.5 % of the nominal quantity |
| What the e mark is | A guarantee by the packer or the importer that the prepackage meets the directive. At least 3 mm high, beside the nominal quantity |
What it changes on an order
You weigh one bag at goods in
One light bag is inside the design of the rule rather than outside it. The average quantity system expects individual packs to scatter around the nominal, and a single reading tells you nothing about the batch it came from.
You buy fruit by the box
Nothing statutory sets a weight tolerance for loose citrus, so the figure is whatever the two of you wrote down. Where nobody wrote anything down, there is no agreed tolerance to fall back on.
You are comparing two quotes with different pack sizes
The tolerable error is set against the nominal quantity, so it scales with the pack rather than staying still. Two offers built on different nominal weights are not carrying the same allowance, even where the percentage printed against them is identical.
You are drafting a weight clause
Name the moment the weight counts and the instrument that takes it. Weight agreed at dispatch and weight agreed at delivery are different promises, and fruit sits between them losing water.
What this note does not settle
- The average quantity rules govern how a pack is made up at the packhouse. They say nothing about what happens to fruit afterwards, and citrus keeps losing water all the way to your door.
- A batch rule is checked by a batch method. Reproducing that check needs the sampling procedure and calibrated equipment, and a warehouse platform scale is rarely either.
- We have no agreed bag format with the grower, no declared nominal weight and no e mark to describe. Anything we said about our own net weights today would be invention.
Source: Council Directive 76/211/EEC on the making-up by weight or by volume of certain prepackaged products
A rule written about batches
The average quantity system was built around an awkward fact of filling machines. They scatter. No filler puts an identical weight into every pack, so European law gave up on the individual pack and wrote its rules about the population instead. The batch averages out at or above the nominal, the count of short packs stays small, and nothing is allowed to be wildly short.
Read that way, one light bag proves exactly what the system assumed before it started. It turns into evidence when several of them line up, drawn properly, out of one batch. A goods-in check that weighs whatever came to hand and holds it against the print on the bag is measuring the scatter the law went in expecting to find.
Where the fruit you buy sits outside it
Most citrus travels in boxes, and a box of loose fruit is outside all of this. No statutory average applies to it, no tolerable error, no mark to invoke. What applies instead is whatever the two parties wrote down, which across a great many citrus contracts amounts to a declared net weight and not one word about how or when anybody checks it.
The clause has to do the work the law is leaving alone. Name the weight the price attaches to, the point where it is taken and the instrument that takes it. Then say what happens when two readings disagree, because they will. We have no bag format and no declared nominal of our own to put into such a clause, and we would rather tell you that than fill the hole with a number.
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.