Averages hide what grading is worth

The arithmetic of grading

A mixed lot is priced by a buyer against its worst visible portion, because that is what protects the buyer. Everything good in the lot subsidises everything poor in it.

Separated, the top grade competes in a different market at a different price, and the lower grades find buyers who were never going to pay the blended rate anyway. The gain is not evenly distributed. It is concentrated almost entirely in the top grade, which is the part that was being most heavily penalised.

Whether it is worth the labour

Grading costs time and handling, and there is a real point below which it does not pay. The honest way to find out is to grade one consignment, sell it as grades, and compare against what the ungraded rate would have been.

That comparison requires recording both the grade split and the realisation per grade. Without records the argument stays a matter of opinion between whoever wants to grade and whoever has to do the work.

Grading and traceability travel together

Once produce is separated by grade, the lot structure needed for traceability already exists. Adding the source plot and harvest date at that point costs almost nothing extra and is what buyers with their own compliance obligations increasingly ask for.