Fumigate in Chile or at the US port: where does the grape contract put the risk?

I know nothing about grapes, so this is from the electronics side. When a buyer's auditor reviews a claim with us, the first question is where each step was done and whose record shows it. A step done on our floor, we show our log. A step done at a subcontractor, we must produce their record, or we cannot defend the part.

Your two options differ in that way more than in the gas. Fumigated in Chile, your side holds the treatment record and can show the state the fruit left in. Fumigated at the US port, the record that matters sits with the importer, and the arrival survey is read against a document you may never see.

So a practical question: when the treatment is done on arrival, do you receive a copy of that record at all?

The Incoterm will not settle this for you, which is the part everyone keeps hoping it will. FOB or CFR moves the risk of loss once the fruit is on board. It says nothing about whether a berry was already soft, or already doomed, at that moment. That is a quality question, and it lives in the sales contract, not the shipping term.

So name the treatment in the contract, name the inspection that counts and where it happens, and say what condition the fruit must meet at that point. Otherwise the arrival survey is the only paper in the room, and it was written on the other side of the water.