Choosing between two acceptable options
Sourcing rarely offers a right answer and a wrong one. More often there are two defensible options, and the decision turns on something specific to your process: what you do with the fruit after it thaws, which customer signs off your supplier list, who controls the truck. The comparisons collected here are written for that situation. Each one answers the question in the opening lines, then sets out the conditions under which each side wins, then names what the comparison table does not show.
Certification
Three schemes dominate supplier approval in European food trade, and the difference between them is smaller than the noise around them suggests. BRCGS against IFS Food covers the two retail-derived schemes: the grading, the audit rhythm, the traded goods question and why a buyer naming one is usually describing a habit. FSSC 22000 against ISO 22000 covers the case where the distinction does bite, because one is GFSI-recognised and the other is not.
Underneath both sits the mechanism that makes the choice mostly moot. What GFSI benchmarking is and what mutual recognition means explain why a scheme-neutral purchasing requirement widens your supply base at no cost.
Product form
Form decisions are cost decisions with a quality tail. IQF against block frozen berries sets out why block is cheaper at the factory gate and often dearer per usable kilogram, and where the crossover sits. Frozen against freeze dried berries covers a larger gap, in price, in weight ratio and in what the product can be used for.
Both depend on stability, which is a technical question before it is a commercial one. Moisture, water activity and shelf life sets out the relationship that decides how long any of it lasts.
Origin
Ukrainian, Polish and Serbian raspberry compares the three origins that European buyers actually weigh against each other, on crop pattern, grade availability, certification, logistics and price behaviour, without pretending that any origin is uniformly better.
Delivery terms
FCA against CPT against DAP sets out what each rule allocates and, more usefully, what none of them allocates. No Incoterms rule specifies a set point, pre-cooling, logger placement or what happens when a logger shows a break, which is why the temperature clause has to be written separately in every frozen contract.
Before you compare anything
Two working documents sit under all of this. The supplier approval pack sets out what to collect before a first order and what each document is actually for. Writing an RFQ for frozen food sets out how to ask several suppliers the same question, which is the only way the replies become comparable.
Where to go next
Start from the decision in front of you rather than from the category. If the open question is which certificate to require, start with the certification comparisons. If it is how to price two quotations against each other, start with the RFQ guide and the price per kilogram calculation. If it is which origin to trial, start with the raspberry comparison and then work through the approval pack for the shortlist.