Reading TBS weighbridge deductions: which are reasonable and which are not
There are always deductions. What you need to know is how big is still reasonable, and when a figure is worth asking about.
The price per kilogram is the figure everybody talks about and it is not the figure that decides what you take home. That is the price times the weight they accept, after deductions. A twenty rupiah difference in the price is often smaller than a three per cent difference in the deduction, and the second is almost never argued because it is almost never read.
How to read a weighbridge ticket
A proper ticket always carries five things. Gross is the vehicle and its load on the way in. Tare is the empty vehicle on the way out. Net is the difference, which is the weight of your fruit before it is graded. Then the deduction, as a percentage or in kilograms. Then the price per kilogram, and the final figure.
The first thing to check is not the deduction, it is whether the net weight makes sense. If your load normally comes in around four tonnes and that day it reads a little over three with no explanation, the problem is at the weighing, not at the grading.
The deductions normally applied
Unripe fruit is the biggest and the most frequent. A bunch cut before it is ripe yields far less oil, so the mill values it lower. This is the deduction you have the most control over yourself.
Long stalk is a deduction against weight that is not fruit. A stalk cut close, usually in a V and left at two or three centimetres, takes most of that objection away.
Dirt and water covers sand, soil, and fruit soaked through in an open bed after rain. Some mills also deduct for bunches that are too small, or for other rubbish that came along for the ride.
Last, the collector's cut, which is a different kind of thing from all of the above. It is not a judgement about quality, it is the margin and the haulage taken between your plantation and the mill gate. It is normal for it to be there, and normal to ask how big it is.
Deductions are normal. What is not normal is a deduction that moves from one delivery to the next with no explanation, when the fruit and the way it was cut are the same. Three consecutive tickets are enough to show whether the figure is consistent.
The range that still makes sense
For fruit cut ripe and hauled the same day, a total deduction in the three to eight per cent range is an ordinary sight at many mills. Anything above ten per cent does not mean somebody is cheating, it means something is worth asking about: usually there really was a lot of unripe fruit, or it sat too long before going in.
What deserves suspicion is not the size, it is the pattern. A deduction that is always different with no reason, or that jumps after months of being steady, is the one to ask about first. Ask politely and ask for the reasoning; most mills and collectors can explain it, and one that cannot has already given you an answer of its own.
Bringing deductions down from the plantation end
Cut at the right ripeness, not early because the price happens to be good.
Pick up the loose fruit that has dropped in the circle. That is weight already yours, and it is the most commonly left behind.
Cut the stalk close, leaving two or three centimetres.
Do not let the fruit sit more than a day at the collection point.
Clean the sand and soil off the bunches before they go on the truck.
Keep the ticket. Every time, without exception.
Of those six, the first two usually make the biggest difference, and neither costs anything extra. Fruit cut early because the price is climbing is the quickest way to lose money twice: once on the deduction, once on tonnage that never filled out.
Comparing against the price that day
A deduction can only be judged once you know the base price. We record daily TBS prices per mill and per reporter, including which is a PKS gate price and which is a collector offer, because the two differ and the difference matters in exactly this sort of sum.
What you can send us
Photos of your last three weighbridge tickets, the name of the mill or the collector, and roughly what tonnage goes per delivery. If you know it, say how many days your harvest rotation runs.
We will help work out what you actually receive per kilogram after the deductions and the haulage, then set it against the mill gate figure for that day. A sum like that counts as a quick question, and a quick question is free.