Sources say that neither the Cape Town port authorities nor deciduous fruit body Hortgro are aware of any export fresh produce rotting at the port due to handling delays. Despite this, the Rapport newspaper at the weekend reported that tons of the country’s best quality export fruit are rotting in harbors.
"Currently, there is no congestion at the Cape terminals. The terminals are fluid with no truck queues inside and outside," said Sne Makhanya, senior manager of corporate affairs at Transnet Port Terminals on Tuesday. There is currently no record of export fruit that have rotted at any of the Cape Town port terminals, Makhanya added.
Between 1 November 2021 and 28 March 2022, the terminals handled 38,700 refrigerated containers, more than the 38,197 refrigerated containers handled in the same period last year. This was achieved despite inclement weather, shipping backlogs and a slow uptake of a new truck booking system.
While Rapport reported that R1 billion in export fruit won't reach markets in the northern hemisphere due to problems at the ports, Hortgro executive director Anton Rabe has said the number may be based on a misunderstanding of an estimate done by Hortgro earlier this year.
"We estimated that, should various problems - like delays due to weather, quality, lower prices and extra costs - be taken into consideration, the potential loss in exported deciduous fruit could be at least 10% of the usual R10 billion in export value," says Rabe, who is not aware of any fresh produce rotting at the port or having had to be discarded.
Source: fin24.com
