Freshmark achieves record 20% growth

Tough times don’t spell doom and gloom for Shoprite’s fruit and veg arm

SHOPRITE Group’s fruit and vegetable procurement, buying and distribution arm Freshmark achieved a record growth of 20% last year. This was according to Freshmark general manager Dr Johan van Deventer, who was speaking on the province’s state of the fresh produce industry yesterday at the Undercover Farming Conference 2017.

The gathering, which began yesterday at the Allee Bleue Wine Estate in Groot Drakenstein, ends today.

Freshmark, a substantial business in its own right, supplies fresh produce fruit and vegetables to group stores within South Africa and most of its outlets in other parts of Africa. It is one of the largest buyers of fresh produce on the continent.

Deventer asked delegates whether the business was really the right business for them and to persevere despite how tough things got.

“To the people at work, I say if you don’t like the fruit and veg business of buying and selling, try second-hand cars … (they) don’t have a sell-by date.

Deventer said Freshmark saw sales of R6.9 billion in the 2016/17 financial year.

“Last year was an absolute record year in difficult times, 20% growth, so it is not so doom and gloom at all. That is R20m a day,” he said.

Deventer said Freshmark grew from a R360m business when he started working at the firm 25 years ago to nearly R7bn.

He attributed the success of the business to the efforts of a brilliant and committed team who grew it from a R6m a day turnover 20 years ago to R26m a day.

“Volumes are up 5% to 1 162 tons per day. The rest of Africa saw growth of 18%.

“It is becoming very important in our lives; this year it’s going to be tougher. Africa is not for ‘sissies’. You sit with lots of things in your business that you have no control over, like the exchange rate.”

Adriaan Conradie, from the Department of Agriculture in the Western Cape, earlier provided an update of the industry in the province, including challenges and what the department had achieved.

Conradie said some of the challenges and interventions for food security were access to and cost of water, which included borehole water, harvest rain water, grey water, family drip irrigation systems and container gardens, abandonment of gardens and theft of infrastructure.

He said water-saving initiatives included rain water harvesting and water tanks, hydroponic concepts, smart gardens and tower gardens, drip irrigation systems, mulching and the use of grey water.