South Africa: SAPEX pomegranate season getting underway

Sapex will start to export their first pomegranates of the season this week. Airfreight is due to begin this week with the first fruit arriving in the UK, Canada and Far East at the end of the week. Air freight will continue for around two weeks with a few tons arriving at each destination.

Sea freight will start at the end of week 9, with destinations across the globe, including UK, Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, the Far East and Canada.

Kobus Louw from Sapex explained, "at this stage we are mainly packing the Acco cultivar, with some Herskovitch also coming in. Quality looks very good, with a very good internal and external colour". The pomegranates are packed in a 4kg carton with a long life bag to give maximum storage life. The size of Acco peaks at Count 14. Herskovitch will be slightly larger and when the first Wonderful comes in, a peak count of 10/12 is expected. Harvesting will continue for the next three months.

The extreme heat in South Africa has not affected the early cultivars, and only caused limited sunburn on the Wonderful variety, according to Kobus, the damage is less than last year.

Sapex expects to ship 250,000 cartons, 1000 tons this season. This is an increase on last year as the trees are maturing, Kobus expects further increases in the next 2-3 years before the volumes level off as the trees reach maturity.

For more information:
Kobus Louw
Sapex
Tel: +27 21 883 8280
[email protected]