China supplies a large share of the world’s pellet and feed processing machinery, and the price gap against European or North American equipment is real. What separates a sound purchase from an expensive lesson is almost never the machine itself — it is the questions that were or were not asked before the deposit left your account. We manufacture and export this equipment, and we watch the same failures repeat: vague specifications, certificates nobody read, Incoterms that moved all transit risk to the buyer, and warranties that quietly excluded the parts that actually wear.
Here are the ten questions that do the work. Ask every supplier on your shortlist, compare answers in writing, and treat evasive replies as data.
1. Are You the Manufacturer, and Can I Prove It?
Trading companies are not automatically bad, but the label matters for warranty, spare parts and technical escalation. Ask for the business license and check the registered scope and capital; ask for a live video walkthrough of the production floor rather than a polished brochure clip; ask how many lines they have shipped to your country. A factory that exports regularly to your region already knows your voltage standard, your port paperwork and your inspector’s habits — that experience shows up in fewer surprises at customs.
2. Which Certifications Does My Market Actually Require?
Compliance is regional, and a document valid in one market proves nothing in another. For the European Union, machinery must carry CE marking supported by a Declaration of Conformity naming the manufacturer, typically covering the Machinery, EMC and Low Voltage directives — the European Commission’s official CE marking page sets out what the marking legally means. Other markets differ. Two requests protect you here: ask for the actual test report or certificate number, not a certificate graphic on a website, and have your local customs broker confirm the requirements before you pay the deposit, because missing safety paperwork is a common cause of shipment holds.
3. Will You Put Component Brands in the Contract?
A quotation that says “pellet mill, 350 kW” is a category, not a specification. The places where cheap substitutions happen are bearings, motors, PLCs, electricals and the main wearing parts. Insist that the contract lists the brand and model of major components, the ring die dimensions and material, and the spare-parts package included in the price. Our own ring die programme exists for a reason: die and roller shell wear sets your real production cost per tonne, so the specification of those parts belongs in writing, not in a conversation.
4. Can I Test With My Raw Material Before Paying?
The single most informative hour in any machinery purchase is watching your own sawdust, rice husk, corn or formula mash run through the actual machine. Reputable manufacturers run sample tests and send you the video and the resulting pellet samples. If a supplier refuses to test your material, that is your answer about them. For complete lines, define a Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) in the contract with measurable pass criteria — capacity at specified moisture, product quality targets — and attend in person or appoint a third-party inspector.
5. What Does the Warranty Cover, and What Does It Exclude?
Twelve months is the common warranty length for this equipment, but the exclusions matter more than the duration. Wear parts — ring dies, roller shells, screens, belts, seals — are normally excluded because their life depends on your material. Ask three things: what is covered in full, which wearing parts are excluded, and how spare parts are ordered and shipped after the warranty ends. A supplier who answers the third question with a named contact and a parts list is telling you something useful about their service reality.
6. Which Incoterms Are You Quoting?
Quotes are only comparable when they use the same trade term. The rules are published by the International Chamber of Commerce — the Incoterms 2020 rules define exactly where cost and risk transfer from seller to buyer. The common choices for machinery:
| Incoterm | Seller covers | Buyer covers | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| EXW | Goods ready at factory | Everything: trucking, export clearance, freight, insurance | Experienced buyers with their own forwarder |
| FOB | Trucking to port, export clearance, loading | Ocean freight, insurance, destination charges | The usual structure for first-time machinery importers |
| CIF | FOB plus ocean freight and insurance to your port | Unloading, customs, onward transport | Convenient, but check who picks the carrier |
| DAP | Transport to your site | Import clearance, duties, unloading | Full-service projects with strong supplier logistics |
For a first import, FOB usually gives the cleanest balance: the supplier handles Chinese export formalities, and you control the freight forwarder and insurance — which keeps someone other than the seller accountable for transit claims.
7. How Is Payment Structured?
The widespread pattern in this industry is a deposit at order and the balance against shipment documents; letters of credit are worth their banking fee on larger projects because the bank only releases funds against evidence, not promises. One warning belongs in every buyer’s notebook: if an email arrives changing the beneficiary bank account, treat it as fraud until confirmed by a phone call to a number you already hold. Payment-details substitution is the most avoidable way importers lose money, and it preys on buyers who are concentrating on technical questions.
8. How Will It Ship, and What Paperwork Travels With It?
Pellet machinery ships disassembled in standard containers — our equipment, for instance, is designed so that drum sections and machine bodies fit container dimensions without field welding — with larger machines in fumigated wooden crates. Wood packaging must comply with ISPM 15, the international standard for treating wood packaging material, administered under the International Plant Protection Convention; non-compliant crates are a routine cause of customs rejections. The document pack should be agreed in the contract:
| Document | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Commercial invoice & packing list | Customs valuation; carton-by-carton contents for claims |
| Bill of lading | Title document; needed to collect the cargo |
| Certificate of origin | Duty treatment; can secure preferential rates under trade agreements |
| CE certificate / Declaration of Conformity | Market compliance (EU and CE-adopting markets) |
| Contract with FAT report | Basis for any post-arrival claim |
9. Who Installs, Commissions and Trains My Crew?
Machinery that arrives is not machinery that runs. Before signing, settle who pays for the commissioning engineer’s flights, visa, accommodation and daily allowance, how many days on site are included, and whether remote video guidance is offered for simpler installations. Operator training should cover operation, cleaning, maintenance schedules and die changes. A line that starts up with your actual material under the supplier’s engineer produces the data you need for acceptance; a line that starts alone produces disputes.
10. What Is the Total Landed Cost?
The FOB price is the headline, not the number that decides whether the project works. Landed cost adds ocean freight and insurance, destination charges, import duty and VAT, customs brokerage, inland delivery, foundations and electrical work, rigging into position, and the first package of wear parts. Peer guides for machinery importers converge on the same advice: budget a substantial margin above the machine price for all of it, rather than discovering the true total at the port. A peer-authored walkthrough of importing food processing machinery from China gives a useful buyer-side view of the same arithmetic.
It also pays to know what you are buying before you compare quotes. Our overviews of pellet machine categories and of designing a complete wood pellet production line walk through the equipment mix first, so the quotations you collect are for comparable plants. And if quality grading drives your market, align the machine specification with the standard from the start — our article on ENplus A1 requirements lists the properties the equipment must actually deliver. For compact installations, our vertical pellet mill is a common entry point, and sizing it honestly is part of the same conversation.
Prepare This Before the First Quote
Half of the questions above get answered faster if you arrive at the conversation with your own homework done. Before requesting quotations, write down the material you will process and its expected moisture range, the capacity you need in tonnes per hour at that moisture, the pellet diameter or diameters your market demands, your site voltage and frequency, and the quality standard your buyers will test against. Send the same specification sheet to every supplier on your list. The quotations that come back become comparable line by line, differences stop being noise, and suppliers who dodge the sheet identify themselves early. Buyers who skip this step usually discover the discrepancy between two quotes only after the deposit — when one plant is a dryer-plus-press line and the other assumed dried raw material.
Bottom Line
Importing pellet machinery from China is a purchasing process, not a shopping trip. The ten questions above compress into three habits: get every specification and component brand into the contract, keep risk transfer and payment milestones matched to verifiable evidence (test runs, FAT reports, shipping documents), and budget the landed cost rather than the FOB headline. Suppliers who answer these questions willingly are telling you how they will behave after the money moves — which is, in the end, the only variable that separates a good import from a cautionary tale.