Haifa Group
By combining vision and leadership, technology and innovation, Haifa Group has become the quintessential world expert in specialty fertilisers, delivering exceptional products.
A solid, stable company with a massive global presence Haifa Group delivers world class operation standards.
Passionately focused on farmers and their well-being, Haifa Group is committed to employees, customers, community and environment. With a pioneering attitude of creating inspirational solutions for a changing world, Haifa Group looks toward a future that embraces improving plant nutrition, efficiency, profit, convenience and environment.
For years Haifa Group has been supporting ZZ2 with high quality, super-efficient fertilisers.
Haifa Group is proud to be associated with low impact, high purity plant nutrients that ensure healthy soils and plants. We believe that ZZ2 will grow from strength to strength for many years to come.
ZZ2 farms are primarily in the Limpopo Province where their sought-after tomatoes and avocados are cultivated. However, the firm also operates in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, North-West Province, Mpumalanga and across the border in Namibia.
The enterprise also grows mangoes, onions, dates, cherries, apples, pears, stone fruit, almonds and blueberries. The ZZ2 brand is well-recognised and possesses a proud history backed by a great customer value offering and superior economic value for all its stakeholders.
As a result of the South African economy being stagnant over the past few years, the enterprise decided to concentrate on superfoods that could be exported, a move which Van Zyl believes was essential.
“Our tomatoes and onions that are only destined for the local market were not showing any growth,” he explains. “Therefore, we decided to leave the hectares of the tomatoes and onions unchanged but to concentrate on improving the productivity of these crops.”
ZZ2’s portfolio has also been extended to include dates, cherries, blueberries and almonds. However, it is the avocado market that particularly
piques van Zyl’s interest.
“We’ve been farming with avocados since the early eighties, but we’ve always been hampered by the lack of planting material,” he explains. “We established our own avocado nursery a number of years ago and this has now enabled us to begin an expansive growth strategy.
“We are very positive regarding our avocados as we see the per capita consumption of avocados increasing on a yearly basis worldwide. Currently, South Africa only has access to Europe for its avocados. As South Africa is ideally placed to serve the east and far eastern markets, ZZ2 will be in a very good position once market access is gained to serve these markets.”
Another enabler for the future is technology.
With industries the world over beginning to digitise at scale, farming is no different, and van Zyl believes that embracing new technology is fundamental and will continue to have a growing impact.
“It is vitally important to embrace digital farming techniques and digitisation strategies in the agricultural sector,” he adds. “Agricultural activities will continue to become more intense, detailed and have a greater emphasis on cost-savings. This will also lead to greater emphasis on effective resource utilisation and environmentally friendly farming practices as well as more effective packing facilities and increasingly optimised logistics flows.”
Looking ahead, van Zyl harbours ambitions of increasing the number of crops exported but stresses the importance of improving its current offering before extending its portfolio.
“We aim to become the preeminent supplier of avocados out of South Africa utilising the very early window we have to get into the market before Peru,” he says, bringing the conversation to a conclusion.
“We will continue to work with our government to get access to more markets especially in the East and Far East. We will probably not diversify too much further but rather concentrate on growing and improving on the productivity of the crops we currently have.”