Japanese AQL โ what it actually means
Industry-standard AQL 2.5 accepts a certain rate of minor defects. Japanese buyers routinely inspect at AQL 1.0 or tighter, which means a batch that passes for a U.S. retailer will fail for a Japanese retailer. We run three inspection stages โ in-line, pre-final and pre-shipment โ with more sampling and lower tolerance at each stage. It's slower and it costs more, and the finished bags reflect it.