Specification
Orange size codes and diameter ranges
Use the orange size codes and diameter ranges below to prepare a purchasing specification. Lower codes correspond to larger fruit.
- Code 0Diameter 92–110 mmSize band Large
- Code 1Diameter 87–100 mmSize band Large
- Code 2Diameter 84–96 mmSize band Large
- Code 3Diameter 81–92 mmSize band Large
- Code 4Diameter 77–88 mmSize band Medium
- Code 5Diameter 73–84 mmSize band Medium
- Code 6Diameter 70–80 mmSize band Medium
- Code 7Diameter 67–76 mmSize band Medium
- Code 8Diameter 64–73 mmSize band Medium
- Code 9Diameter 62–70 mmSize band Medium
- Code 10Diameter 60–68 mmSize band Small
- Code 11Diameter 58–66 mmSize band Small
- Code 12Diameter 56–63 mmSize band Small
- Code 13Diameter 53–60 mmSize band Small
Diameter is measured across the widest part of the equatorial section. The citrus standard sets sizing rules in section III and size tolerances in section IV.B.
Minimum orange diameter under section III.A: 53 mm. Lower diameter limit within the size tolerance: 50 mm. Tolerance to the size immediately above or below: 10 %.
Source: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2429, Annex I, Part B, Part 2. Consult the citrus provisions in sections III and IV for the complete sizing and tolerance rules.
We do not publish a table of which size each market wants. That is commercial preference, it changes by campaign and by chain, and no regulation fixes it. Tell us your destination and we will tell you what we are picking.
Writing a size requirement that survives a warehouse
The table above is the framework of the standard, not a stock list. A code names a diameter band, the bands overlap, and two codes can legitimately describe the same orange. None of them says how many oranges are in a box. Put the cultivar and the diameter range in the enquiry with the unit written out, and add your own internal code beside it if your purchasing system runs on one.
Large, medium and small mean whatever the last person to use them meant. A juicer needs a requirement that can be checked against a machine; a stall selling by the piece has room to move. Saying which part of your requirement is essential and which is a preference is what lets a grower answer yes or no instead of guessing.
Size and class answer different questions
Size is a dimension. Class is a description of appearance and condition, and the two need separate fields on an order. A larger orange is not a better-looking one, and a class on its own says nothing about whether the fruit fits your feeder. Ordering one and assuming the other is how a lot arrives technically correct and commercially useless.
Presentation requirements are worth writing in words a grower can act on. For a display that means how the fruit has to look on it. For a kitchen it tends to mean handling: who portions it, and what equipment sees it first. Those preferences ride alongside the agreed class and diameter rather than replacing them, and what we can supply against the whole specification still needs confirming for the week in question.
When the equipment sets the size
An automatic juicer comes with fruit dimensions published by its manufacturer, and that document is the starting point rather than any size table. The feeder and the squeezing components have limits of their own, and fruit outside them jams a line or gets thrown out at the hopper. Juice oranges, on its own, is not a specification.
How a proposed lot gets checked against your range is worth agreeing before an order rather than after a rejection. We have no confirmed sample service, so a sample is not something this page can promise. If one were arranged, what it represents would have to be written down first: which lot it came from, when it was picked, and what a later delivery would and would not have in common with it.
Fruit size is not box quantity
A size request and a packing request answer different questions, and answering one with the other is how a pallet ends up with the right fruit in the wrong configuration. State the fruit dimensions, and state the intended net weight or count per package. If your customer buys by the piece, that changes which of the two is the binding requirement.
This table is for oranges. Clemenules is a clementine and the standard sizes it on a separate table, in section III.B, so one code on the two scales is two different diameters. An orange range copied onto a clementine line survives every check that does not measure fruit, which is why it usually surfaces at the far end, in somebody else's warehouse, a week later.
Agreeing the reception check before dispatch
A size discrepancy reported without a method is a disagreement, not a finding. How the fruit is measured and how packages are picked for inspection are worth agreeing before the lorry leaves. If your intake procedure is already written down, sending it early spares everybody the discovery that the two ends of the chain were measuring different things.
When a query is raised, the measurements, the package labels and the photographs stay together, and the lot they refer to gets named. What the problem affects matters as much as the millimetres: a feeder that jams is a different conversation from a display that looks wrong. And where the available size changes before dispatch, the revised specification goes in writing and gets assessed before it is accepted, not after the pallets are standing in your yard.
Size code
One note per size code, with the diameter band it fixes and which of our varieties fill it.
- Orange size 0, the largest code in the standard
- Orange size 1, and why a clementine 1 is smaller
- Orange size 10, and the four smallest codes
- Orange size 11, and grouping three codes in a bag
- Orange size 12, the cleanest break on the scale
- Orange size 13 and the legal minimum diameter
- Orange size 2, and how far it overlaps size 1
- Orange size 3, and the uniformity bracket it sits in
- Orange size 4, and what it means on a purchase order
- Orange size 5, and the codes its edges touch
- Orange size 6, the smallest we pack routinely
- Orange size 7, the last code our range reaches
- Orange size 8, and the tolerance behind the label
- Orange size 9, where the scale changes step
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.