Mung Beans (Green Gram)
Machine Cleaned Mung Beans
What mechanical cleaning removes, what it leaves behind, and when it is the right specification to contract.
Machine cleaned is the base commercial specification for mung beans, and for a large share of the trade it is also the correct one. It covers the mechanical separation sequence: pre-cleaning to remove field trash, aspiration to lift dust, husk and light immature seed, screening to size the crop and remove undersize and broken material, destoning to take out stone and soil of the same size as the bean, and gravity separation to remove insect-hollowed and partly filled seed by density.
What that sequence does well is remove anything that differs from sound grain in size, weight or density. What it does not do is correct colour. A seed that is the right size, the right weight and the right density but the wrong colour — weathered, stained, discoloured, off-shade — passes through a machine cleaning line untouched. Removing it requires an optical sorter, which is a separate step and a separate cost.
That distinction is the whole of the machine-cleaned-against-Sortex decision. If the buyer mills the bean, or cooks it in a way that makes appearance irrelevant, machine cleaned delivers everything they need and specifying more simply adds cost. If the buyer's customer sees the bean through a transparent pack, colour matters and machine cleaning alone will disappoint.
What machine cleaning removes
- Field trash: pod fragments, stalk, leaf, string, dust and mud.
- Light material: husk, chaff, shrivelled and immature seed, insect-hollowed seed that has lost density.
- Oversize and undersize material, including broken pieces and small weed seed.
- Stone, soil pellets and other dense foreign matter of the same size as the bean.
- A large share of insect-damaged seed, through density separation on a gravity table.
What machine cleaning does not remove
- Discoloured and stained seed that is otherwise sound.
- Off-colour and off-shade seed within the same size and density range.
- Mould-marked seed where the mark is superficial and the seed remains dense.
- Foreign seed that happens to match the mung bean in size, shape and density.
When machine cleaned is the right contract
Dal mills and splitters are the clearest case: they are buying yield, the husk comes off in processing, and paying for a colour sort adds cost without adding value. Price-sensitive destinations buying for general cooking are a second case. Bulk food service is a third.
The honest commercial advice is to match the specification to the end use rather than defaulting to the tightest available grade. Over-specification is the most common way a workable enquiry becomes an uncompetitive offer.
Specification
Typical specification
Mung Beans (Green Gram) — Machine Cleaned
Whole green mung beans, East African origin
- Product
- Whole mung beans (green gram), Vigna radiata
- Origin
- Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia
- Crop year
- Stated on contract
- Moisture
- 12% max
- Purity
- 98% min
- Foreign matter
- 1% max
- Admixture
- 1% max
- Damaged and discoloured
- 2% max
- Broken and split
- 1% max
- Insect damaged
- 1% max
- Immature and shrivelled
- 2% max
- Size
- 3.0 mm and above
- Colour
- Bright green, as per approved sample
- GMO status
- Not genetically modified
Notes on specific parameters
- Crop year — Contract on a specific crop year; it materially affects colour, cooking behaviour and insect load.
- Size — Also available 3.2 mm+ and 3.5 mm+ subject to crop and grading.
- GMO status — There are no commercially cultivated genetically modified varieties of this crop.
- Size bands are produced by screening and depend on the crop; confirm the band against a current sample.
- Sprouting-grade requirements are assessed separately — see the Sortex specification and the mung bean quality guide.
Specifications shown are indicative contract parameters used across the trade. They are not laboratory results and are not a guarantee attaching to any particular lot. The specification that governs a shipment is the one written into its contract, agreed against the buyer’s requirement and, where appearance matters, against an approved sample.
Frequently asked questions
Is machine cleaned lower quality than Sortex?
It is a different specification, not a lower standard of care. Machine cleaning removes everything that differs from sound grain in size, weight or density. What it does not do is correct colour, because that requires optical sorting. For a milling buyer, machine cleaned is often exactly the right product.
Can machine cleaned mung beans still meet a 98% purity specification?
Yes — 98% minimum purity is a normal machine-cleaned parameter. What changes with colour sorting is the treatment of discoloured and off-colour seed, which pushes purity higher and tightens the visual grade.
Request mung beans (green gram) availability
Send your target origin, specification, quantity, packing, destination port and Incoterm, and we will come back with a position against the current crop.
- Origin
- Specification
- Crop year
- Quantity
- Packing
- Destination port
- Incoterm