It’s interesting how different the 2021 grape season has been compared to 2022, remarks Dandré Gerber, commercial director of AMFRESH in South Africa. The company currently exports 2.4 million 4.5kg cartons of South African grapes.
Dandré is quite certain that this figure will increase within the next couple of years. The Spanish company is looking for investment opportunities in South African agriculture at the moment, with a focus on subtropical fruit to supplement their solid table grape and citrus portfolios.
They are currently also supplying key retailers in the United Kingdom with passion fruit and dates from South Africa as well as Namibia.
This season grape prices have increased due to lower freight costs in comparison to last season, he says.
The majority of the retailers in the United Kingdom have also not included inflation increases on prices of their suppliers.
South African and Namibian table grape supply entered into a relatively good market due to Spain ending its season earlier and California having heat waves. This allowed Peru to supply more into North America and less to Europe and the UK, which are still the main receivers of South African grapes.
New weather patterns a challenge for South African growing regions
“The Namibian and South African table grape offering will change over the next 5 to 10 years. Younger vines will come into production and production areas will focus on planting more varieties proffered by end consumers.
The industry now needs five or six good years: grape growers last year had returns below production cost when total production and freight costs increased by almost 36%.
“We, as an industry have growers who this season didn’t prepare some of their crops [as table grapes]. This year they dried their fruit, because of the financial losses incurred last year.”
Grape farms in Namibia as well as South Africa have come on the market over the last eight months. It will be interesting, he remarks, to see where the industry is in ten years. "If I look into my crystal ball, South Africa will decrease to an average of around 65 – 70 million 4,5kg cartons a year."
He adds that new weather patterns are a challenge for South African growing regions.
"The Hex River (where they grow some of the best Crimson in the world) is well known for prolonging the red seedless season. The last two seasons the Hex River’s supply ended earlier due to summer rain during harvest."
M&S reports outstanding grape sales over Christmas
AMFRESH Group is the exclusive grape, citrus and flower supplier to Marks & Spencer and the exclusive supplier into COOP UK on grapes and citrus. Most of the Southern Hemisphere grapes for M&S are grown in South Africa, the majority of the fruit packed into open non vented punnets in South Africa and heat-sealed at their Alconbury facility in the UK.
The company also supplies Mercadonna, Eroski and El Corte Ingles in Spain, Costco in USA and Canada respectively, Walmart in USA and Dairy Farm in South East Asia.
The biggest challenge for table grapes is to maintain shelf space amid competition from other increasing fruit categories such as berries and cherries, and yet - despite inflationary pressure on consumers who face increases in energy prices - Marks & Spencer has reported one of their best Christmases in terms of sales.
“Marks & Spencer are the custodians of having fewer varieties in a given week on their shelves. This means not more than 4 to 5 varieties per varietal group in any given week, with less deviations on eating experience from consumers. This is a big driver behind sales that increase.”
Clear stalwarts have emerged on varieties that drive sales and that includes but is not limited to: green Autumn Crisp (right), Sweet Globe, Ivory and Timson; on red Sweet Celebration, Crimson, Allison, and Timco and on black grapes Sweet Joy and Adora.
“Retailers have a lot of options at the moment. They are very particular on varieties and sourcing countries. They might accept a variety from one country but not from another,” he observes.
"The fresh industry has been a significant part of healthy lifestyles throughout the world for centuries and now more than ever it will remain to be very important. Growers and consumers throughout the world form a significant part of the success of our industry – we need to nurture them."
For more information:
Dandré Gerber
AMFRESH
Tel: +27 82 789 2688
Email: dandre.gerber@amfresh.com
https://southafrica.amfresh.com/