Discrepancy between fruit packed and shipped raises concern

As the citrus export season ends,
the continuing annual discrepancy
between volumes packed (85.5m
15kg cartons this year) and product
actually shipped (75.7m cartons,
according to PPECB) has citrus
industry officials calling on
government to implement EDI as
a way of ensuring more accurate
accounting.
“The difference when you are
dealing with large volumes can be
significant. There are discrepancies
between varieties as well, but these
vary,” Justin Chadwick, CEO of the
Citrus Growers’ Association (CGA)
told FTW.
The biggest gap between fruit
packed and shipped occurred
with Valencias (37.1m cartons
packed v 29.8m shipped), while the
smallest gaps occurred for navels
(19.4m packed v 19m shipped) and
grapefruit (14m v 13.5m).
“All packed fruit is fruit
packed onto pallets that have
been inspected and certified for
export. One to two percent of
these I believe make it to port but
there may be a packaging or other
problem and the fruit is either
diverted to the local market or
destroyed,” said Chadwick.
However, the majority of fruit is
probably actually shipped, but an
undercount happens when pallets
are repacked into containers.
“A container may be recorded
as holding 20 pallets when in fact
it contains the fruit of 23 pallets.
The reason I believe is that CGA
collects levies for every packed
pallet. If an exporter is not actually
shipping those pallets he is entitled
to a refund, but we are not receiving
the claims,” said Chadwick.
The answer he said is EDI, and
exporters are pushing government
for implementation of the electronic
capturing of data.
“Once a pallet is captured by a
scanner it is in the system for good.
EDI is useful for several reasons,
but it would also allow us to
accurately track export shipments,”
said Chadwick.