Managing the cold chain due to shipping delays and other challenges is making the ongoing South African table grapes and stone fruit seasons so much more challenging to navigate for the table grape and stone fruit producer the Le Roux Group, from the Western Cape’s Berg River region in South Africa.
“Our group’s motto is to produce top condition plus quality fruit while we sell to any market where the price is good and where supermarkets can pay us. Back in the day, the mark-up used to be up to 35%. Now, years later considering the much better quality of fruit we produce, together with the ever-rising input costs the mark-up is still around 35%. Supermarkets make the most money in the value chain,” explained founder and owner Jan Le Roux.
FreshPlaza visited a few of the Le Roux Group’s table grape and stone fruit farms in Paarl, Joubertsdal and the Sandrivier Estate in Wellington situated outside Cape Town. The group annually produces and exports over 3,2 million cartons of table grapes and stone fruit. Exports are done by Le Roux Fruit Exporters Pty (Ltd.) Markets include the main destinations Europe and UK with supplementary markets in the Far East, North America, the Middle East as well as other African countries.
Le Roux together with his senior management team gave some insight into the effect that challenges, such as the worldwide container shortages as well as port delays have on the entire value chain, especially on farms.
“We were aware of the challenges before the start of the season. Our plans changed daily to pack and make sure we fill the maximum number of containers. The relationship with our agents and clients is crucial. Many of them helped to absorb some of these extra costs. We informed them our arrivals will not be as agreed on paper. Like many other SA exporters and producers, we made use of conventional ships, which are very very expensive and not a sustainable long-term option at these extraordinary high rates. Our group made use of the late-night shift in the port between 22:00-06:00 to load containers from our cold stores and in this way relieve pressure on the backlogs to at least make it in time to get fruit onto the weekly ships.”
The group operates the single biggest table grape unit fully covered under shade netting in the Southern Hemisphere, on the farm Broodkraal, with 552 hectares of table grapes. It has a fully serviced agricultural town for workers including four large packhouses that operate 24 hours a day during the harvest season. The group employs 6 200 workers of which about 800 are permanent employees.
“Mechanisation is limited. All our fruit is packed by human hands. This is the only way to prevent damage to the fruit from the orchards, through packing, to the shelves around the world. We need to earn a premium on our fruit to reward everyone involved in growing, packing and shipping the fruit,” says Le Roux.
Le Roux won the 2021 farmer of the year award from the Agricultural Writers of South Africa, whose members visited some of the group’s farms and packhouses.
For more information:
Jan Le Roux
Le Roux Group
Tel: +27 (0)21 864 1967
Email: info@lerouxgroup.co.za
www.lerouxgroup.co.za