---
title: Wholesale customer portal for fresh produce wholesalers
Metadescription: How Wholesale Handler runs a fresh produce customer portal - daily availability, a cutoff on the delivery day itself, moving prices and catch weight.
author: Dan Edwards
author_role: Founder
author_url: https://danedwardsdeveloper.com
author_linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-edwards-developer
published: 2026-08-26
---

Token estimate: ~1,300

# Wholesale customer portal for fresh produce wholesalers

A produce portal is a [wholesale customer portal](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/wholesale-customer-portal) configured around a list that changes. What a bakery sets once - the catalogue, the price, the weight of the thing - moves in produce from week to week and sometimes from day to day, so four settings decide whether the portal is any use: what the chef sees as sellable, when ordering closes, how a price change reaches them, and how a box that weighs something different every time gets billed.

By **[Dan Edwards](https://wholesalehandler.com/about)**, Founder.

## The list has to be today's list

A produce catalogue is not a fixed set of products. It is what is in season, what came in this morning, and what is off until Thursday, and a portal showing last month's list generates calls rather than saving them.

Wholesale Handler narrows it three separate ways. A season is a start and end date with no year, so it repeats annually without being re-entered, wraps the New Year where it needs to, and a product can carry more than one. An unavailability window is an absolute-dated exception carved inside the season, with a stated reason and an optional line of your own wording - and no end date at all where the answer is until further notice. Stock counting is per product, so the lines you count are counted and the rest report Not tracked rather than claiming a number you did not give.

The chef sees the result grouped rather than filtered away: Wholesale Handler splits the order form into available, out of stock, out of season with the date it returns, and unavailable. A product they wanted has a reason attached to it, and they can ask to be told when it comes back.

## The cutoff can land on the delivery day

Produce ordering closes late by the standards of most trades. A restaurant that decides its specials at service is not ordering three days out, and a market buy happens the same morning it is delivered.

In Wholesale Handler each delivery day carries its own deadline, stored as notice before that day begins. The figure is signed, so a negative one puts the deadline on the delivery day itself - orders for Tuesday closing at 04:00 on Tuesday rather than the night before. Days that need the longer run-up keep it on the same profile, so a Monday after a weekend market closes on Friday while the rest of the week stays open overnight.

## A price change has to reach the buyer

Produce prices move with the market, which makes the weekly repricing the job rather than the exception.

Wholesale Handler holds prices as [price lists](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/how-price-lists-work-on-wholesale-handler) that derive from one Default catalogue by percentage. Repricing after a market move is an update to the Default, and every list that derives from it follows - a customer on 90% of Default stays on 90% of Default without being touched. Anything typed in by hand is marked as an override and stops deriving, so the deals you negotiated hold still while the rest move.

For thirty days after a price changes, Wholesale Handler shows the old price struck through beside the new one on the order form. The buyer sees the rise while they are ordering rather than finding it on the invoice.

## Boxes that are not the same weight twice

Wholesale Handler prices a product per unit, by catch weight, or by exact weight, and the difference between the last two is when the weight is known.

Catch weight is the one produce needs most: the box is priced by the kilo but nobody knows what it weighs until it is picked, so the buyer is shown a typical price up front, marked as typical, and the line is settled on the actual weight. Charge by weight covers the case where the buyer names the weight when they order, so there is no estimate to reconcile.

## Q&A

**Q: Can I sell produce in fixed case sizes or enforce order multiples?**
A: Not as arithmetic. A Wholesale Handler product carries a unit label and a pack size, so a customer sees Case of 12 and orders cases. There is nothing behind that enforcing multiples of twelve on a loose count, and no estimated range count for a case that holds roughly 60 to 72 items.

**Q: How do customers find out a product is back in season?**
A: Two ways in Wholesale Handler, and they are chosen per customer. A customer can subscribe to one product and be emailed the day its season reopens, or take a weekly digest of everything coming into and going out of season, which suits a merchant who would rather send one email than several.

**Q: What stops a catch weight order being invoiced at its estimated weight?**
A: Wholesale Handler refuses it. An order with catch weight lines that have not been weighed yet cannot be pulled into an invoice at all, so the typical price the customer ordered against cannot reach them as a bill. Weigh the lines and the order becomes invoiceable.