Start at the bottom of the page rather than the top. The results matter less than who took the sample, how, and when, because a number from a sample nobody agreed to is not a basis for accepting or rejecting a cargo, and arbitration will say exactly that.
Work through it in this order:
- Identity and scope. Does the certificate describe your consignment – the vessel or container numbers, the marks, the quantity, the loading date? A certificate covering a different parcel of the same commodity is a surprisingly common problem.
- Sampling. Which method, how many incremental samples, what total mass, drawn where and by whom. ISO 24333 and the GAFTA sampling rules are the usual references. For mycotoxins this is the single most important section on the page, because contamination sits in hot spots and a small unrepresentative sample can produce almost any answer.
- The issuing body and its accreditation. An independent surveyor’s certificate and a supplier’s internal report are different documents with different weight, and the laboratory’s accreditation scope should cover the specific parameters reported.
- Methods against each result. Moisture by ISO 712, test weight by ISO 7971, falling number by ISO 3093, protein by the stated Dumas or Kjeldahl method with the nitrogen factor named. A result without a method is not comparable with anyone else’s result.
- The results themselves, read against the contract, not against the offer sheet: moisture, test weight or specific weight, protein, admixture and foreign matter, broken and damaged grains, falling number where it applies, and the contaminant set.
- The allowance schedule. Most of these parameters trade against allowances rather than as pass-or-fail, so a slightly out-of-specification result is a price adjustment. Check the contract schedule before treating a result as a rejection.
- Whether the certificate is final. Certificate final at loading, at discharge, or averaged – this is a contract term, and it decides whether the document in your hand settles the matter.
Two habits are worth building. Cross-check the results against each other, because parameters that disagree indicate a sampling or reporting problem: a high test weight with high broken grains, or a falling number that does not fit the moisture and weather history, deserve a question. And check the certificate against the customs and phytosanitary documents for consistency of description and quantity, since mismatches between documents are what actually strand cargoes at borders.