The pomegranate harvest season at Pomona started in late February and will go on until middle of May. The season has lengthened a bit as a result of the higher volumes. Last year the company harvested just under 300 tons and this year will harvest over 500 tons. Brent Geddes form Pomona explains, "We also experienced a change in the timing of the harvest, we started about 1 week earlier than last year due to the changing weather conditions. We see that the weather is becoming more and more unpredictable, compared to prior years and so we need to adapt our various programs (spray, harvest, pruning etc) to accommodate this."
The growing conditions for the pomegranates were good this year. We had more sunlight hours and so the brix levels of the fruit is averaging well over 16, compared to last year where the brix levels were closer to 15. This is good for the taste of the fruit and should sell well in the market. On the negative side there was more wind than last year which will have a slight impact on the percentage of class I and class II fruit which will be exported.
The main early varieties are the Herschkovitz and Acco. The main later variety is the Wonderful which according to Geddes, will begin to be harvested within the next two weeks. Certain Indian varieties such as the Moller and Bagwa are also grown in South Africa, but on a much smaller scale.
The main area for growing pomegranates in South Africa is in the Western Cape and Northern Cape. There are approximately 1000 hectares of commercially grown pomegranates in the country. "Pomona has 106 hectares so about 10% of the South African supply. We are also planning further expansion over the next few years and will hopefully have over 200 hectares by 2015," said Geddes.
Pomona has considered looking at opportunities in Namibia and Botswana and would like to partner with local farmers in those areas. But Geddes stresses, "We are first and foremost focusing on growing our South African supply where the infrastructure is in place to handle higher volumes before venturing into other jurisdictions."
The main market for the class I and class II fruit is still the Rotterdam fresh fruit market and the UK. The demand from Canada is also growing and Pomona are sending a few containers this year to start building relationships and to ensure that the fruit can handle the 4 week transit time from Cape Town to Toronto. Pomona’s first container to Canada will leave Cape Town on the 19th March.
There are about 2.5 million tons of commercially grown pomegranates in the world and less than 5% of that is grown in the Southern Hemisphere and that is concentrated mainly in Peru. Chile also has growing volumes, but according to Geddes, he has heard that they are struggling to get the required brix levels in some areas.
Australia is also interested in planting pomegranate trees, but in many areas the soil has a high content of clay that retains to much water and causes root rot. So, although the volumes are growing quite rapidly in the Southern hemisphere there is still a long way to go before they even dent the demand levels that are coming from the Northern Hemisphere in the production months. Geddes explains that, "For example most clients that we have started talking to are interested in 1 to 3 containers per week for the entire harvest season of 12 weeks. Our 250 tons of class I and class II fruit is only about 15 containers which would not even fill the demand of 1 client.
The Chinese and Russian buyers are prepared to pay very high prices for large, class I fruit and we are interested in looking at these market however it is difficult to get credit insurance on the buyers and so we are reluctant to service them given the risks. We are however looking at other ways of entering the market where we can ensure payment."
For more information:
Brent Geddes
Pomona
Tel: +27 (0) 82 619 2700
brent@pomegranatesdirect.com
www.pomegranatesdirect.com