Lucerne Agri is celebrating its 101st birthday this year; a family business with five farms along the Breede River, and keen on strategic partnerships with hardhitters like the ANB Group. Lucerne Fresh is the in-house marketing division that allows them full control from farm to fork.
In high summer their pack lines are rolling with tomatoes – they aim to lead on beef tomatoes in the South African retail space, says scion and CEO Juan-Ivan Smuts – and stonefruit, a category which is, he notes, emerging from a slump.
"We're very bullish on plums, which makes up 90% of our stonefruit offering, and our focus is to grow even more on plums. We've been working a lot with Zaiger Genetics in California, on their interspecific plums and there are even better varieties coming."
They are slowly but surely exciting European retail interest in winter stonefruit (eating experience had been problematic in the past, he says) with the new varieties, but it's not only in Europe where the category is being rekindled through new varieties and good availability.
"Over the past two years the US market has accepted South Africa's plums and they've seen it's very good, superior to Chilean stonefruit," Smuts asserts.
The third positive he posits is still a few years off, when current negotiations to gain access into China for South African stonefruit conclude. "That will allow the stonefruit industry to grow even further."
They always keep two goals in mind: the one is year-round employment for staff, and the second, neatly complementary to that, is offering clients a comprehensive basket of products.
So when customers started asking for table grapes, it was a natural evolution to source from selected growers. Last year Lucerne Agri bought a strategic share in a grape and grapefruit farm up in Kakamas, Northern Cape, for which Lucerne Fresh now handles all the marketing.
To fill the grape supply window later in the season, they source from growers in Trawal (Olifants River region) and Paarl (Berg River region).
"We offer a nice basket of old-school grapes - your Flame and Prime, because you always have clients who can't afford the new varieties, and new varieties like Sweet Globe and Autumncrisp®."
"Vegetables come naturally to us"
"We are very used to planting and handling vegetables, it comes quite naturally to us. On vegetables we take the long view. It's not speculative."
Export butternuts and pumpkins are currently harvested until May and packed in a retrofitted packhouse they're renting in Robertson. They're supplying "a lot" into Europe, he says.
"We're seeing a lot of influential chefs using butternuts and pumpkins in their recipes, and we've noticed a big increase in consumption in Europe, especially now during the Northern winter. It's definitely a product with a lot of potential. It's not a high value product but it adds a lot of value to our portfolio."
A third or more of their total volume is tomatoes, twelve months of the year, predominantly beef tomatoes and Roma tomatoes. A recent cocktail tomato trial convinced them to stick close to what they do best, Juan-Ivan shares.
"We're at a point where on tomatoes we've got a sweet spot. What is critical is that we don't want an oversupply of tomatoes. Another important point is that we have a packing and staging facility up in Johannesburg, for our partners from the north who grow tomatoes for us for the other six months of the year."
Citrus provides stability
In winter, Lucerne Agri packs its soft citrus into the Halo brand for the USA. At around $10,000 for a container (almost R8 or 0.4 euro per kilogram) it's more expensive than sending elsewhere, but trading with clients in the USA and Canada is non-negotiable and they're expecting freight rates to follow the downward pricing curve of other routes.
"Our most stable income comes from soft citrus because we [in the Western and Northern Cape] have access to the United States. We're not worried about Peru in the USA because we differentiate ourselves when it comes to quality: I consider our citrus quality as superior to Peru's."
Lemons and oranges grown around Robertson, rounded out with Northern Cape grapefruit, complete their citrus hand.
Lucerne Agri has two other arrows to its bow: very late season avocados and persimmons (Sharon fruit), the latter through joint acquisition with the ANB Group of Arisa packhouse in Swellendam, two years ago.
The persimmon packhouse, previously owned by Israeli investors MOR, was for sale and apart from the persimmons, it is also used for avocados and plums.
"Our area is very unique: on avocados we're probably the latest in South Africa, filling the November to December window. It's exclusively for the local market. We don't buy in from the north yet, but we're looking into it."
Given the operating environment, here is zero room for mistakes anymore. The realization that there is no more "fat on the bones", as the saying goes, keeps him awake at night.
"The big worry is the political environment, which led to mismanagement of infrastructure as we see with our harbours. And then the pressure on costs worldwide. Inflation has really struck hard and input costs have increased tremendously."
He adds: "We have to believe the situation will improve. We're totally invested in South Africa. We like to believe that as long as people need to eat, there'll be a place in the sun for us."
For more information:
Juan-Ivan Smuts
Lucerne Agri
Tel: +27 23 004 1306
https://lucernefresh.co.za/home/