There are agreements between growers and traders on the quality of the products presented for trading at the auction. These agreements refer to product quality, assortment, packaging and information on the product. The agreements are set out in the VBN product specifications.
If the product deviates from the agreements, an inspection code will be applied to the product. The deviation can be negative or positive, so there are negative as well as positive inspection codes.
A list of inspection codes can be downloaded from this page. The most recent modifications to inspection coding can be found in the overview of changes to the characteristic codes.
Negative inspection code
Negative inspection codes consist of three digits. There are two codes for each deviation: an even-numbered code in the case of minor deviation and an odd-numbered code in the case of a serious deviation.
The codes are listed in numerical order, then ordered by subject:
codes beginning with 1: flower
codes beginning with 2: internal quality
codes beginning with 3: roots/clumps
codes beginning with 4: branch/stem/trunk
codes beginning with 5: leaf
codes beginning with 6: parasites
codes beginning with 7: packaging
codes beginning with 8: sorting
codes beginning with 9: other
Positive inspection code
There are two types of positive inspection codes: one code referring to phytosanitary aspects and another for general quality aspects. There is also a third positive inspection code, containing auction-specific information.
Download: