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Real Oranges at gebana
We have been delivering real oranges from Greece to our customers since 2020. Find out on this page what we mean by “real oranges”, how they are different from ordinary oranges and why we deliver 13 kg crates.
What are real oranges?
Real oranges can be large or small, scarred, misshapen, perfect, speckled, deep orange, or sometimes even green.
Green oranges? Yes – the colour of an orange says nothing about how ripe it is. Only the juice content and flavour matter. The fruit only takes on its namesake colour once night-time temperatures in the fields drop below 13 degrees. That's why, in countries near the equator, oranges never turn orange.
In short, real oranges show us the full diversity of nature. Almost as if we'd picked the fruit ourselves, straight from the tree.
Why 13 kilos?
We check fresh fruit for quality, then send it straight on to you in the same crate in which it reaches us. Repacking it into smaller packages would cost us more work time, more space and more packaging material – and would ultimately make the fruit more expensive.
Why preorder?
If we want that unrivalled flavour, we have to follow nature's schedule, not the other way round. That means you wait until the oranges are truly ripe. Thanks to your preorders, we also know in advance how much fruit we’ll need and when. That helps us and the family farmers plan the season.
Why aren't there any real oranges in the supermarket?
Today's food industry is so geared towards efficiency that it trades oranges just like a hardware shop trades screws: all identical, interchangeable at any time, and supposedly exactly what consumers want. To make sure the system works as intended, the trade secured the EU's support many years ago.
Take the EU marketing standards for citrus fruit, for example (today: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2429; previously: Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 543/2011). This regulation dictates what oranges sold to consumers must look like. They must be orange, intact, with no bruising or significant scarring, and at least 53 millimetres in diameter.
In our video about these ordinary oranges, you can see everything exporters do to make as many fruit as possible meet the standard.
The regulation named in the video, No 543/2011, was replaced on 1 January 2025 by the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2429 – more on this further down.
What does all this mean for family farmers?
In the past, the family farmers we work with had to discard up to 35 percent of their harvest each season because it didn't meet the standard.
These discarded oranges can only be sold by the producers on the local market or to the juice industry. In 2019, we therefore decided to do something about this madness:
In 2019, we launched a petition and a campaign to free the illegal oranges, to secure an exception to the EU standard in force at the time – if need be, by deliberately breaking these nonsensical rules. In the end, we didn't have to go that far: the EU pointed us toward an exception within its own regulations, intended for the processing industry. At the time, whether it also applied to sales to consumers was left to the discretion of individual member states – we were operating in a grey area, and we used it.
The magic words were: intended for processing. Fruit officially intended for processing could look however it liked. The transport crates simply had to be labelled with these exact words: Intended for processing.
This grey area no longer exists. On 1 January 2025, the EU replaced its marketing standards with Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2429. Sales to consumers for their own processing are now explicitly provided for – no longer a matter left to individual countries' discretion. The label intended for processing is still required.
Thanks to our real oranges and our sharing approach, family farmers in Greece now receive around three times as much as they would if they sold their fruit to retailers. Read more on our page about sharing to find out what, how much and why we share.
Pre-order real oranges now
Real oranges can be pre-ordered in our online shop from around the end of August each year. Each season has five delivery dates in total, four in winter and one in summer. If it's not the season right now, you can mark the item to receive a notification as soon as the ordering window opens.
Alongside oranges, we also deliver clementines, lemons and grapefruit. The family farmers look forward to your order.
