A small farm absolutely needs to find its niche, believes Jack Lewis, owner of Klapperbos pomegranate and apricot grower and product developer. His dried pomegranate arils make people's eyes' pop ("Pure natural candy, with all the polyphenols and the flavonoids still there") and when the braai masters out there meet his pomegranate molasses, he says they'll realise they have found a winnning recipe.
Klapperbos' pomegranate molasses is made using an imported vacuum evaporator that looks, he likes to quip, as if he's been contracted to enrich uranium. In this process his pomegranate juice is never boiled, but slowly reduced. One can tell by colour that it never boiled, he explains: it's purple whereas boiled pomegranate juice turn dark brown to black.
© Klapperbos Farm Klapperbos pomegranate molasses is just what South African braai marinades are lacking, pomegranate grower believes
His molasses contains nothing but pure pomegranate juice. For juicing he uses only Acco pomegranates whose taste, he's sure, would be preferred in a blind tasting. Its thinner peel, instead of being a drawback, in fact means more flesh and juice.
Pomegranate reduction or molasses is in the pantry of every household from Morocco to India and so pomegranate molasses should be, he believes, in South Africa. However, mass-produced pomegranate molasses often contain taste-altering ingredients added to finetune the balance between sweet and sour.
Pomegranate molasses' meat-tenderising deserves to be paired with a braai (barbecue), an activity elevated to part of the national identity. "I am looking for a braai champion," Lewis declares. "My pomegranate molasses in a marinade imparts a wonderful sweetsour taste. I want some potjie [South Africa version of hotpot] chef to try it."
© Klapperbos FarmHe also presses juice from his Acco pomegranates ("Wonderful is ok" in his opinion) but due to the fresh nature of Klapperbos pomegranate juice, it cannot be sent outside of the Western Cape. The pomegranate molasses, on the other hand, he can send anywhere because the combination of low pH and high fructose (and not sucrose, mind) preserves the product.
Klapperbos expects lower apricot & pomegranate crops
Jack Lewis is in his third incarnation, after a first career as anti-apartheid activist, university economics lecturer and founder member of the influential Treatment Action Campaign that won South Africans the right to HIV antiretrovirals. Then followed journalism and video production, always for the public good, like the Community Media Trust non-profit which he founded (and which he's been able to leave in the capable hands of his successors, he is pleased to note.)
"I knew nothing when I started," he says but he was up for a challenge. His grandfather had a wheat and sheep farm near Calvinia and through the years Lewis kept close a photo of his mother among the sheep until the day, sixteen years ago, when he planted the first Acco pomegranate trees on his tiny (by South African farming standards) farm in Vanwyksdorp, itself Lewis reckons the smallest town in the Klein-Karoo.
Klapperbos farm has water rights from a perennial eye in the Rooiberg which even during the worst of the 2016-2018 drought, when hundreds of apricot orchards were lost throughout the region, never stopped flowing.
"Last year was an exceptional year on apricots, we had much more than the average. This year though we'll probably have a lot less than the average," Lewis says. Icy winds blowing off the snow on Towerkop, of over 2,000 metre elevation, usually make for very cold winters, but the past winter, he says, it wasn't very cold "and the trees didn't get a proper sleep." They recently added apricot tree to bring the total to three thousand trees, half Bulida and half Soldonne.
Likewise, rain in October 2024 was perfectly timed for the developing apricots and pomegranates; this year some districts in the Southern Cape are in drought.
"I'm seeing it on my pomegranates too, we have a fair crop but last year it was a bumper crop, we took off 25 tonnes per hectare!"
In bumper years, like 2024/2025, they supply the surplus apricots to Ceres Fruit Growers for juicing, This year's crop will probably go for drying by themselves on farm, without sulphur, which is a big selling point. "You will never experience a burning throat after eating our apricots," he says. "Our apricots are sprayed with nothing and it's dried naturally. It isn't as pretty as sulphured apricots but it's not like leather, it's still soft."
© Klapperbos Farm
They are "99%" organic and the recent acquisition of more hectares adjacent to them has made certain biocontrol strategies viable whereas before their acreage was too small to sustain biocontrol populations. False codling moth is a problem, not only on the fruit but attacking bee hives as well. "If I could give one piece of advice to anyone growing pomegranates: don't do it close to a town or neglected gardens."
Insect Science's Last Call pheromone attractant which they apply on indigenous trees – false codling moth is an indigenous pest – on their periphery seems to be working well.
Klapperbos sells apricots to By Nature, a distributor of sulphur-free dried fruit. The pomegranate reduction is sold nationwide by Faithful to Nature. "In the Western Cape leading organic stores like Organic Zone, Wild Organics, Komati, Organic Point and other well known establishments like Olympia Bakery in Kalk Bay and The Lebanese Bakery all sell Klapperbos pomegranate juice, " he says, adding that increasingly they're venturing into the marketing of the pomegranate molasses and the dried fruit.
And he's serious about looking for a braai champion.
© Klapperbos Farm
For more information:
Jack Lewis
Klapperbos Farm
Tel: +27 71 987 7712
Email: [email protected]
https://www.klapperbos.co.za/
