South African fruit exporter Cape Five recently ended up with some 20 tons of pears that it was unable to deliver to Russia due to export restrictions. The company donated the fruit to a charity distributing food to internal refugees in Ukraine. When the Russian invasion of Ukraine took place, the shipment of pears was already on its way from South Africa to Russia. It became stuck in the port of Rotterdam from where it was supposed to be shipped to St Petersburg. The fruit had already been packed and labelled for the Russian market.
Fruit exported to Russia has different specifications than the stricter EU regulations, so suddenly there was the challenge of what to do with the ‘stuck’ pears.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Cape Five had already started donating fruit to local communities in South Africa. This gave managing director Wayne Mudge the idea of trying to do the same with the pears stuck in Rotterdam. "We knew we could not sell these pears for much in Europe and would lose money anyway. Instead of letting the fruit go to waste, I thought it better to rather do something good with it," says Mudge.
Source: news24.com