Machine-cleaned means the product has passed through mechanical cleaning: sieves, aspirators, de-stoners and gravity separators that remove dust, stones, stalks and light seeds. Sortex-cleaned means it has then also passed through an optical colour sorter, which rejects particles that look different from the good product.
Sortex quality usually means higher purity and a cleaner look. It also costs more to produce, because the sorter rejects some good material along with the bad and adds a processing step.
What machine cleaning does
Raw spices and seeds arrive from the APMC market or the farm with field dirt in them. A processor runs them through a line of machines, each removing one kind of impurity by size, weight or shape.
- Sieves and screens separate by size. They take out oversized lumps and fine dust.
- Aspirators use air flow to lift off light material such as husk, chaff and empty seeds.
- De-stoners separate heavy particles, mainly stones and mud balls, by density.
- Gravity separators sort by specific weight, so shrivelled or immature seeds can be split from full ones.
What a colour sorter adds
A colour sorter, widely called Sortex in India after an early brand of machine, looks at each particle with cameras as it falls. When a particle is the wrong colour, a jet of air knocks it out of the stream.
It catches what machine cleaning misses: discoloured or damaged seeds, mouldy pieces, and foreign seeds or matter that are the same size and weight as the product but a different colour. That matters for products sold whole, where the buyer's customer sees every grain.
A sorter cannot remove what looks the same as good product. Seeds of a similar colour, internal insect damage or a chemical problem such as pesticide residue will pass straight through. Colour sorting improves appearance and physical purity. It does not make a product safe.
Which one should you ask for
It depends on what happens to the product after it reaches you. Some buyers grind, blend or sterilise and accept machine-cleaned grades. Others pack whole seeds for retail and need sortex grades.
- Packing whole spices for retail: sortex-cleaned is usually the safer choice.
- Grinding into powder or blends: machine-cleaned may be enough if your purity spec is met.
- Supplying a food manufacturer with tight foreign matter limits: ask what their spec allows and choose the grade that meets it.
- Unsure: ask for samples of both grades from the same lot and compare them side by side.
Do not buy the label, buy the numbers
"Sortex quality" is a trade description, not a standard. Two suppliers can use the same words and ship very different goods. Write the purity, foreign matter and admixture limits into your contract, and check them on the shipment. Our guide to writing an agri product specification shows how.
Ask the supplier whether the cleaning and sorting happen in their own plant. A trader may buy cleaned product from someone else and describe it however they like. Seeing the machines in use, as part of checking whether a supplier is a trader or a processor, tells you more than any brochure.
Also ask how many passes the product goes through and what the reject rate looks like. A sorter run once at high speed gives a different result from a slower double pass.
How we help
We visit the processor's plant, check the cleaning and sorting line in operation, and have sealed samples tested against your purity spec at an NABL-accredited lab. If you are deciding between grades, start with a free sourcing review.