Products

How to read a product specification page

Every product page on this site follows the same order, because buyers read them in the same order: a paragraph saying what the product is and who uses it, then the specification table, then seasonality and availability, then the checks a receiving plant runs at intake, then the standards and routes that apply, then the questions that come up most often. Nothing on a product page is written to persuade. If a parameter is variable, the page says what it varies with instead of quoting a comfortable single number.

Specification values are a starting point, not a guarantee

The tables state typical values and working ranges drawn from published standards, regulation and normal processing practice. They exist so you can draft a specification quickly and argue about the right things. The binding figures are the ones in your contract and on the supplier’s certificate of analysis for the specific lot. Where a parameter differs by grade, by season or by processing line, the table says so rather than averaging the difference away.

Grade letters carry no fixed meaning

Grade naming is not standardised across the industry. One processor’s grade A is another’s premium and a third’s class I, and the same letter can mean a different defect tolerance in two plants twenty kilometres apart. Specify the measurable parameters – size band, defect tolerance by count or by weight, foreign matter limit, Brix, drained weight – and treat the grade letter as a shorthand for those numbers rather than a substitute for them.

Customs headings are indicative

Where a page names a customs classification family, it is the heading that normally applies to goods of that description. Classification is the declarant’s responsibility, it depends on the exact composition, processing and presentation of the consignment, and the export and import declarations can legitimately differ. If you need certainty before committing to a duty rate, apply for a binding tariff information decision in the importing country rather than relying on any published table, including this one.

Microbiological criteria and residues

Product pages reference the EU framework – Regulation (EC) 2073/2005 for microbiological criteria, Regulation (EC) 396/2005 for pesticide residues, Regulation (EC) 1881/2006 and its successors for contaminants – and then note where a buyer’s own specification typically goes tighter. Retail customers frequently impose limits below the legal ones, and a supplier who meets the regulation is not automatically meeting your customer’s specification.