Goede Hoop Vrugte: Bumper Forelle volumes and good apple colour

Goede Hoop Vrugte is a grower-exporter that packs and markets the topfruit of twenty producers in the Ceres area, as well as the citrus of Goede Hoop Citrus in Citrusdal. Locally, Goede Hoop Vrugte has had longstanding relationships with supermarkets.

The Summer Citrus campaign, in which citrus growers from the Western and Northern Cape take part to provide the USA with citrus fruit during their summer, will start shortly. “The market there is currently very good,” says Philipetri Fourie, marketer at Goede Hoop Vrugte, “so if you can, you have to get in early.”

Goede Hoop Citrus’ BIG (“Belê in Groei” – Invest in Growth) project has since 2013 invested in 900ha of soft citrus plantings across the Western Cape to service markets and supermarket programmes from the start of the season to the finish. 

Initially the expectation was that the soft citrus season would be much like last year but calibres might be small, especially on the early cultivars. Packouts on Satsumas are average due to an incidence of creasing. 

Overall, citrus volumes from Citrusdal will be up on last year, but still not on par with previous years, he expects. Navels, which experienced a difficult season last year, will probably recover but he considers that it will still not be a normal season, volume-wise, on navels for South Africa.

Midknights and Valencias from Citrusdal will be down due to poor fruit set and size is affected by the current drought.

In Ceres late cultivars like Pink Lady and Sundowner are now being harvested. This season has presented a good opportunity in Europe and they sent more Royal Gala than usual to the EU, while the Middle East is a market under pressure

“The Far East isn’t a main Pink Lady market for us because in our area we don’t get the size they want; they’ll always get that from Chile as well as from New Zealand and Australia. That’s why England has always been an important market for us on Pink Lady, especially the supermarkets. The colour is good this year so packouts should reflect that. The EU also takes Pink Lady, but a bit larger sizes than we can provide.”

“Producers have taken off one of our largest Forelle harvests so far, a really good harvest volume-wise because there are many blocks that are coming into production. However the traditional markets are a bit under pressure. As for size, it’s actually an average size, in our area mostly an 80 and then a 70, with a tail end of smaller fruit, more numerous than the 60s and larger.”

Generally, smaller than the Far East would like, but the market could adjust to this season’s reality. “They seem to prefer South African pears, especially the Forelle with nice red cheeks, which has an intense colour in our area this season.”

The rain of recent weeks in Ceres had a positive effect on the size and colouring on Forelle, but in general the pears are generally about a size smaller than last year. “On Packhams that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he notes, “because in our area we traditionally get a really large Packham, anything from a 42 to a 38, especially is the harvest is a bit later. This year we’re looking at 60 and 52 which opens up more opportunities in the market. The European market still has Conference pears and it takes a lot of our Bon Chretiens and as the volumes run out, we can put increasing volumes of Packhams into the market so it will pick up later. But I think that the Far East is one of the most important markets for our Packhams, increasingly so. They regard it as a hardy pear.”

Mixed farming with vegetables and fruit is the norm in Ceres, and this year showed why: everyone planted less onions, but what they did put in the ground, has amply rewarded the effort. 

“The onion production was some of the best we’ve ever had in this area,” he says. “Our producers usually plant around 200ha but this year that was down to not even 80ha.”

For more information:

Philipetri Fourie

Tel: +27 23 315 5293

Email: philipf@ghfruit.co.za