Packing lists for fresh produce

In most trades a packing list is a formality — so many cartons, so many kilos, filed and forgotten. In fresh produce it is the document you sell from, because the cargo is not fungible. A pallet of size 18 avocados and a pallet of size 24 are different products, with different buyers and different prices, and the only place that distinction is written down before the container is opened is the packing list.

Get it wrong and you have not made a clerical error. You have quoted the wrong fruit to the wrong customer.

Formally, it is the exporter’s statement of what is physically inside the container: how many pallets, what is on each one, which variety, which calibre, how many boxes, and what everything weighs. It is what your warehouse works from, your sales team quotes from, and your finance team reconciles the invoice against.

What a good one contains #

• Pallet identification — a number or code per pallet, matching the physical label
• Produce, variety and calibre — Hass avocados size 20, Crimson Seedless grapes 18mm+
• Category or grade — Class I, Class II, or an exporter’s own grading
• Box count and box weight — per pallet, and a declared total
• Net and gross weight
• GGN or certification references where the buyer requires traceability

Why it is the hardest document to read #

Packing lists have no standard. They arrive as Excel with merged headers, as PDF tables with no ruling lines, as scans of printouts, in Spanish, Portuguese or English, with the calibre column labelled Calibre, Calib., Cal, Size or nothing at all. Two exporters shipping the same fruit will produce documents with nothing structurally in common.

Templates cannot survive that, which is why reading a packing list reliably means reading it for meaning rather than by position — and why the commercial invoice is worth comparing it against. Two documents describing the same goods independently is the best protection against a misread that either one alone can offer.

What goes wrong #

Box counts that don’t reconcile. A per-pallet sum that disagrees with the declared total means one of the two is wrong — and quietly trusting either can double a shipment.

Missing box weights. Common, and usually recoverable: net weight divided by box count gets you there.

A summary sheet that outranks the detail sheet. Many workbooks carry both, and the summary is useless for allocation.

FAQ #

What is the difference between a packing list and a commercial invoice? #

The packing list says what is in the container; the invoice says what it costs. They describe the same goods from different angles, which is exactly what makes comparing them useful — a disagreement means one of them was read or written wrong.

Do I need a packing list to track a container? #

No. Tracking needs only the bill of lading, container or air waybill number. The packing list is what fills in produce, quantities and weights once the container is registered.

Why does the calibre matter so much? #

Because it determines the price and the buyer. Two pallets of the same variety at different calibres are different products commercially, which is why calibre is the field most worth getting right on a packing list.

My packing list is in Spanish. Is that a problem? #

No. Spanish column headers are recognised directly — Calibre, Calidad, Envase, Categoría — and values in any language are understood from meaning rather than from a fixed vocabulary.