Hindustan Scale Company · Est. 1955Bluetooth scales and the phone app

The scale does not just say 312 g. It says Grade A.

That one change — a grade label on the display instead of a bare weight — is what a grading weighing scale does that an ordinary scale cannot. The packhouse writes its grade table into the scale from a phone. From then on, every mango or pomegranate placed on the platform is weighed, matched to its band and shown as a grade, and the scale counts how many fruit went into each. No chart on the wall, no mental arithmetic, no argument at the box. Here is why fruit is graded by weight, how the scale and the phone divide the work, and how to try it on one packing line for thirty days.

PLSSGYM – Electronic Gym Platform Scale - the HSCo product this paper is about.
The scale does not just say 312 g. It says the grade — because the packhouse wrote its own table into it from a phone.

Size is a number in a rulebook, not an opinion

Grading by weight is not a packhouse habit. It is written down — three times over.

The Codex Alimentarius standard for mangoes (CODEX STAN 184-1993) says plainly that “size is determined by the weight of the fruit” and sets three codes: A is 200–350 g, B is 351–550 g, C is 551–800 g. The UNECE standard FFV-45 (2017) uses the same principle and adds a D code above 800 g. India’s own AGMARK rules — the Fruits and Vegetables Grading and Marking Rules, 2004 — run their bands lower, from 100 g. All three cap how much the fruit in one box may differ.

Regime Size codes by fruit weight Maximum spread inside one box
Codex (FAO/WHO), amended 2005 A 200–350 g · B 351–550 g · C 551–800 g 75 g · 100 g · 125 g
UNECE FFV-45, 2017 A 100–350 g · B 351–550 g · C 551–800 g · D above 800 g 75 g · 100 g · 125 g · 150 g
India AGMARK, 2004 A 100–200 g · B 201–350 g · C 351–550 g · D 551–800 g 50 g · 75 g · 100 g · 125 g

Look at what the table does to one fruit. A 312 g mango is Grade A under Codex, Grade A under UNECE and Grade B under AGMARK. In the Indian trade table that HSCo’s mango grading scale post reproduces — 25 g steps, A1 at 301–325 g, climbing to A9 above 500 g — the same fruit is A1. Four rulebooks, three labels, one fruit. The weight is the fact; the label depends on whose table is in use. That is why a grading scale must hold a table you can change, not one burnt in at the factory.

Pomegranate is sized the same way. Codex (STAN 310-2013) gives a weight guide from E (125–200 g) to A (501 g and above); AGMARK sets minimum weights from 200 g for E to 400 g for A. The Indian trade adds its own names — super, king, queen, prince, 12A and 12B — which the National Horticulture Board describes as grades by weight, size and colour. No rulebook fixes those names in grams, so a packhouse loads whatever bands its buyer actually pays against.

Figure: the same 312 g mango is Grade A under Codex and UNECE, Grade B under AGMARK and A1 in the Indian trade table
The weight is the fact. The label depends on which table the scale holds — so the table must be loadable from the phone.

Why the eye is the most expensive grader you own

The rulebooks hang size on grams, not judgement, for a reason. A 2022 paper in Foods describes mango grading in India as done “manually by experienced evaluators” and calls it “time-consuming, inconsistent, and subjective”. A 2023 review in Frontiers in Plant Science adds that manual sorting is “prone to human fatigue, and is biased by inspector experience”. A Maharashtra farmer-producer company told FreshPlaza in July 2026 that in Bhagwa pomegranate “fruit size can vary considerably on the same tree”.

The cost of that inconsistency shows up at the box. Boxes are sold by count of same-size fruit: the APEDA export packaging specification for mangoes (June 2025) fixes cartons for 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 fruit, and the National Horticulture Board says a pomegranate box takes 4–5 queen-size fruit or 12 prince-size. Codex requires every package to be uniform in size; a box that mixes grades is under-filled, over-filled or sent back.

And the price follows the grade. On 14/04/2026 the Hindustan Times reported Alphonso at Vashi APMC at ₹2,000 to ₹6,000 per box “depending on size and quality”, with premium grades at ₹5,500–₹6,000; the Free Press Journal put the same market at ₹1,500 to ₹5,000 a box the next day. A threefold spread, same fruit, same week — the grade is the price. A Vashi trader told the Hindustan Times that small sizes usually go for export to the Gulf, so size decides the market as well as the rate.

The trade is large enough to make this worth getting right: India grew 231.43 lakh tonnes of mangoes in 2024–25 by the Department of Agriculture’s final estimate — 44.52% of the world’s crop, APEDA says, citing FAO — and 28.18 lakh tonnes of pomegranates, 43.4% of them in Maharashtra. Grading is the step where every fruit is handled and every price decided. Doing it once, by number, matters.

What does a grading weighing scale actually do?

The phone holds the table. In the HSCo Grade Setup app the supervisor types the bands — a label and a weight range for each — and sends them to the scale over Bluetooth. The scale holds twelve grade slots. A mango packhouse loads the twelve bands its crop and its buyer use; pomegranate needs far fewer, whether that is the five Codex codes, the five AGMARK codes or the six trade names.

The scale shows the grade. Once the table is in the scale, the phone can go back in a pocket. A fruit lands on the platform, the weight settles, and the display shows the grade label — not just 312 g, but Grade A, or A1, or queen, whatever the table says. The packer reads one word and drops the fruit in that box.

The scale keeps the count. Every fruit graded adds one to that grade’s tally. At the end of a lot the supervisor reads the counts back on the phone — how many A1, how many A2 — which is exactly the number the buyer orders against. HSCo’s mango scale has a 30 kg capacity, the company states, so a full crate goes on: TARE removes the crate and the scale counts the mangoes in it.

Diagram: the phone writes the 12-slot grade table into the scale, the scale shows the grade on its own display and keeps a count per grade, and the phone reads the counts back
The table lives in the scale; the phone only writes it and reads the counts back.

Underneath is a standard HSCo platform scale with an embedded controller that holds the table and a Bluetooth link to the phone. Platform scales are listed from about ₹4,620 to ₹65,000 (indicative, before GST, on 15/09/2026); the grading version is configured to order, one of HSCo’s connected scales that put the weight, and the record, on a phone.

What it is not

It is not a sorting machine. A conveyor-and-camera grader sorts thousands of fruit an hour, and costs accordingly. A grading weighing scale is one platform and one packer; it makes a human sorter consistent, it does not replace one. Nor does it choose your bands: the rulebooks disagree, the buyer’s table beats them all, and someone has to type it in.

It is not exempt from stamping. The moment the grade sets the rate per box, grading is a trade transaction, and the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 (section 24) requires any scale used in a transaction to be verified and stamped before use. Unverified use is an offence under section 33: a fine of ₹2,000 to ₹10,000, and up to a year’s imprisonment on repeat. HSCo states that its mango grading scale is certified by the Government of India and the Legal Metrology Department.

It cannot be sharper than its division. A trade (class III) scale reads in steps: OIML R 76 and NIST Handbook 44 both define the class with a verification division of 5 g or more for scales of 500 to 10,000 divisions, and allow a full division of error in service at loads under 500 divisions. Our arithmetic on those numbers: with a 5 g division a 312 g fruit may legitimately read anywhere within ±5 g. A 25 g band is five divisions wide, so the grade is unambiguous — except for a fruit within one division of a band edge, which can honestly land on either side. That is why Codex and AGMARK both allow 10% of the fruit in a box to fall just outside its size range.

Twelve slots, eighteen bands. The full Indian mango trade table has 18 bands of 25 g; the scale holds 12. The twelve from 226 g upward (3, 2, 1, A1 to A9) cover the premium and export trade; a packhouse selling smaller fruit loads a lower block and reloads for the next buyer.

What changes on Monday morning

Packhouse grading table in Maharashtra with crates of pomegranates, one packer at the scale and boxes filling by grade behind her
One packer, one scale, boxes filling by grade: the person who benefits is the one who no longer has to remember the chart.
  1. The packer reads one word, not a chart. Grade A, A2, queen — the display says it. New hands grade like old hands from the first hour.
  2. Every box is uniform. The 75 g spread Codex allows in an A box is kept by the scale, not by memory, so fewer boxes come back for mixed sizes.
  3. You know the grade mix before the truck leaves. Per-grade counts on the phone say how many boxes of each grade a lot made, and what it is worth at today’s rate.
  4. A grade dispute is a lookup, not a shouting match. The table that was in the scale and the counts it produced are on the phone.
  5. Changing buyer is a small job. Export table on Monday, domestic mandi table on Tuesday, the same scale.

A rough number: at Vashi in April 2026 the gap between the top and bottom of the Alphonso range was ₹4,000 a box; every box that slips a grade gives away a slice of it, and the mixed box is the one that comes back. (An illustration — count your own rejections before trusting anyone’s arithmetic.)

How to start: one line, thirty days

  1. Pick one packing line and one buyer. The one whose grade disputes cost you the most last season.
  2. Write the buyer’s table down — label and gram range for every band, twelve or fewer, with no overlap at the edges.
  3. Load it from the phone. Weigh twenty fruit already graded by eye and see how many move.
  4. Run the season lot by lot. Read the per-grade counts on the phone; keep the buyer’s rejection notes beside them.
  5. After thirty days, count three things: boxes rejected for mixed sizes, minutes per crate, and the grade mix per lot against the price received.

Hindustan Scale Company has made weighing scales in Mumbai since 1955 and builds the scale, the grading firmware and the phone app itself, so one supplier answers for the whole chain.

Frequently asked questions

What is a grading weighing scale?

A weighing scale that holds a table of grade bands and shows the grade label — not just the weight — when a fruit is placed on it. On HSCo’s scale the table is written from a phone app, the scale holds twelve grade slots, and it keeps a count of how many fruit fell into each grade.

Can I use the same scale for mangoes and pomegranates?

Yes. The bands are a table, not a fixed part of the scale, so the phone can load a mango table one week and a pomegranate table the next. Pomegranate needs fewer slots — five Codex or AGMARK codes, or the six trade names — so it fits comfortably.

Does a grading scale need Legal Metrology stamping if it is only used for grading?

If the grade decides the price per box, the scale is being used in a transaction, and the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 requires it to be verified and stamped before use. Unverified use carries a fine of ₹2,000 to ₹10,000 under section 33, and up to a year’s imprisonment on repeat.

How accurate does the scale need to be to grade in 25 g bands?

A class III trade scale with a 5 g division may be out by up to one division in service at the loads a mango sits at, by OIML R 76 and NIST Handbook 44. A 25 g band is five divisions wide, so the grade is clear for almost every fruit; only a fruit within a division of a band edge can read on either side.

What happens to a fruit that sits exactly on a band edge?

The scale assigns it to whichever band the reading falls in, and the standards expect this: Codex and AGMARK both allow 10% of the fruit in a box to fall just outside the box’s size range. Write your table so bands never overlap — one band ends at 500 g, the next begins at 501 g — so the scale never has two answers.

Do I need the phone at the scale all day?

No. The phone is used to write the table into the scale and to read the counts back. In between, the scale shows the grade on its own display, with no phone connected.

Next step

Send us your buyer’s grade table and we will load it on a grading scale and propose a thirty-day pilot on one packing line.

Hindustan Scale Company (HSCo) · Mumbai · est. 1955 · www.hindustanscale.com · hsc@hindustanscale.com

Sources

  1. FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius — Standard for Mangoes, CODEX STAN 184-1993 (amended 2005), s.3 sizing, s.4.2 tolerances, s.5.1 uniformity.
  2. FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius — Standard for Pomegranate, CODEX STAN 310-2013, s.3 sizing, Tables A and B.
  3. UNECE — Standard FFV-45 concerning the marketing and commercial quality control of Mangoes, 2017 edition, s.III.
  4. Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (AGMARK), Government of India — Fruits and Vegetables Grading and Marking Rules, 2004 (GSR 220, 26/06/2004), Schedule IV Mangoes and Schedule V Pomegranate, official compendium.
  5. National Horticulture Board — Pomegranate crop profile, s.6 Post-harvest management (grading names; box composition).
  6. Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare — 2024-25 Final Estimates of Area and Production of Horticulture Crops; Press Information Bureau release 2241379 (17/03/2026).
  7. APEDA — Fresh Fruits & Vegetables and Mango product pages (FAO 2024 world share; DGCIS export data, 2025-26); APEDA / Indian Institute of Packaging — Packaging Specifications for Exports: Mangoes (June 2025).
  8. The Legal Metrology Act, 2009 — official text, India Code, s.24 and s.33; Legal Metrology Organisation, Government of Maharashtra — Act summary sheet.
  9. OIML R 76-1:2006 — Non-automatic weighing instruments, Tables 3 and 6, s.3.5.2; NIST Handbook 44 (2026), Section 2.20 Scales, Tables 3 and 6.
  10. Foods 11(21):3483 (2022) — Computer Vision System for Mango Fruit Defect Detection Using Deep Convolutional Neural Network; Frontiers in Plant Science 14:1082860 (2023) — Advancement in artificial intelligence for on-farm fruit sorting and transportation.
  11. Hindustan Times (14/04/2026) — Rain-hit Konkan Alphonso crop down 75%; Free Press Journal (15/04/2026) — Alphonso mango prices ease in Navi Mumbai’s APMC.
  12. FreshPlaza (10/07/2026) — Indian pomegranate supply stays short while growers prepare for stricter export markets (Bhagwa fruit-size variation, Maharashtra farmer-producer company).
  13. Hindustan Scale Company — Mango Grading Scale blog post; Platform Scale product page (indicative prices as listed 15/09/2026, before GST).