In the Berg River region the table grape season is progressing well, not having been affected by the heavy rain that fell two weeks ago in other parts of the province.
Uva Farms outside Wellington grows grapes on approximately 90 hectares on the banks of the Berg River, marketed under the DewSouth brand.
Their season starts with Prime and Starlight in mid-December and ends in March with Adora or Scarlotta, new varieties which stretch their season.
Their grapes for the Far East and Canada are marketed through exporters, while the company has increasingly been involved in directly marketing their own grapes in Europe.
“Sending some product directly to Schrijvershof, our receiver in the Netherlands, has been a gamechanger for us,” says Laurent Borel-Saladin. “The biggest advantage has been a firsthand understanding of what’s going on in the market. We can relate to Schrijvershof and because it’s a family business, there’s a synergy between us. My brother and I farm together, we were born into table grapes, third generation farmers in South Africa of Swiss-French heritage.”
Laurent Borel-Saladin of DewSouth
No end to variables facing agriculture
The company has diversified into other sectors like real estate, but table grape production is the toughest component of their business, says Laurent, who originally trained as an architect. “Every year there’s an exceptional incident in the market and you think you can learn from it but it doesn’t quite work like that. Every year is unique in its way. With agriculture you can’t always apply the lessons learned from previous mistakes. There are so many variables in agriculture, the exchange rate, market issues, politics, labour, water. You don’t have control over so many factors that it can be frustrating. But you have to give 110% every year. The market demands a perfect product.”
Because it’s a natural product, each year there are variances in the grapes, Laurent explains. If white varieties tend towards a more yellow colour, they definitely have to go to southern Europe. “I love yellow grapes, if I see yellow grapes in a shop I’ll always buy it because I know it’s sweeter, but in northern Europe they’ll want green grapes. You’ll get a quality claim on yellow grapes. So in this way you make sure you send the market exactly what it wants.”
In the East it’s even stricter, and with the high cost of transport and long shipping times, a grape producer has to get it absolutely right: perfect, uniform colouring, huge berry size, absolute consistency within packaging.
The farm is on the banks of the Berg River, and it had seemed that at least water was a constant they could bank on, until the recent drought. “In 2018 the Berg River dried up here, in the middle of our harvest. We could walk right through the river, it was the first time I’ve ever seen that in my lifetime. The vineyards survived but the next season we felt it, and our product suffered.”
They still have water restrictions and the price of water has become more expensive. “The drought really bumped us out of our comfort zone.”
Guy Borel-Saladin, production manager, in a block of the popular Autumn Crisp
Slim grape production margins
Laurent is frank about the slim profit margins of table grapes in the Berg River region.
“South Africa’s grape harvest comes in at mid-season at the time when the market is under the most pressure. A lot of farmers around here run very lean machines. You can’t expand, your margins are too small,” he says, noting that property prices have risen tremendously, in part boosted by the purchase of ‘trophy farms’, as he calls it, often purchased by wealthy business people coming from outside the Cape. “There’s been huge consolidation in our area.”
“We are seriously labour-intensive with table grapes which is a really good thing in a country with 29% unemployment. Agriculture is the only economic sector that’s not shrinking. But does government really recognise this? We get no governmental support, no export incentives, but we’re still huge employers.”
“Even though table grapes are marginal, we do it because we have a passion for family business, but it’s more than that – we employ 500 people from August until the end of March, because even before the harvest there’s a tremendous amount of preparation and manipulation in the vineyards. You don’t just flip a switch on hundreds of people who have come with you for 25 years.”
DewSouth's packhouse
“Another challenge for us is that we’re planting vineyards with a view towards the next twenty years, and then you have retailers who change their minds about varieties at the snap of a finger – that’s catastrophic. As a grower you invest so much in varieties, you have a 20-year plan for returns on your investment.”
He mentions that there have been some varieties in which they have invested, varieties that were not tested in all of South Africa’s grape areas that have since proven themselves unreliable (“a few real duds”). “Suddenly you have to write off all of the capital you invested in those varieties, pull it out and start from scratch again. New varieties are just coming all of the time.”
One change he welcomes with open arms, is the move away from plastic and back to older, paper-based forms of packaging, but he notes he doesn’t yet see how the industry is going to get around the ubiquitous plastic punnets.
“The amount of packaging material that we have to throw away when a new marketing manager comes in with changes to all the specs is incredible. All the stock for a whole season and you’ve got to dump it with no consideration for a lead time to work stuff out.”
Packing into paper bags is more environmentally sustainable
“I can tell you, if you’re in table grapes and you diversify into other industries, boy, you’re prepared – you’re so cautious, you do so much homework, you’re used to turning over every cent. It really prepares you well for other industries.”
For more information
Laurent Borel-Saladin
DewSouth
Tel: +27 21 873 1664
Email: laurent@ezinet.co.za
http://dew-south.co.za/
Willem Schrijvershof 
Schrijvershof B.V.
Tel: +31 186 643004
Email: willem@schrijvershof.nl
https://www.schrijvershof.nl/