Berries project goes under hammer
New owner of flagship Stutterheim business not yet known
The Amathole Berries project in Stutterheim, one of the flagship projects of the Eastern Cape “Berry Route”, fell under the auctioneer’s hammer this week.
The farm had been under business rescue.
Bidders Choice (BC), the Pretoria-based auctioneers handling the sale, had an offer on the 380ha property.
However BC director Pieter Geldenhuys, who auctioned the farm, could not give any information on the selling offer price or the buyer.
“That will be released by the company handling the business rescue and it is out of our mandate.
“I am also unable to discuss details of the business rescuer.”
He said it would take a week for all the details of the offer to be ratified.
However, he said he was happy with the turnout.
“There were about 60 buyers.
“One group travelled down from Johannesburg.
“They were hoping to pick up a few bargains, but were really surprised by the interest.
“I can disclose that there were several buyers for the various items.”
The farm was founded in 2008, in a joint venture involving the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) which owned 80%, of which half was a workers trust funded by the European Investment Bank via IDC, the Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) (10%) and Yummiberry Projects (10%).
Yummiberry is part of the National Empowerment Fund (NEF), which falls under the department of trade and industry.
The original shareholders interest in running the farm and making decisions ceased once business rescue came into effect.
Daily Dispatch has left messages with, and repeatedly phoned, the IDZ, ECDC and NEF, but could not reach officials involved with the project for their views on why the farm had failed.
Mike Smith, who was employed on the farm as a manager for 10 years, said despite a long battle to make money the farm had always seemed to limp along, despite the enormous initial potential.
Smith estimates “several hundred thousand” plants have been destroyed, as required by the agreement with supplier breeders that the plants could not be sold, as the tissue culture remains the breeders’ property.
Another problem is that, due to hydroponic growing in 44ha of tunnels, the plants are all in plastic containers, which he said have to be washed and only then can go to waste reclamation centres.
“It is difficult to say what exactly went wrong with the farm.
“At one stage we were producing between 17 to 18 tons per ha.
“Other growers, working with more mature plants, get between 24 to 30 tons.
“I have no idea what the new owner is intending, but in my opinion this is a viable business that needs a few things done to get it on the right track.”
The farm has an office block, workshop, shed, pack-house and two staff houses.
Equipment included tractors, two trench diggers, refrigerator truck, quad and scrambler bikes, and a generator.
In its heyday the blueberry farm employed up to 200 parttime and 50 full-time staff.
Blueberry production is labour-intensive.
When Amathole Berries was launched the published plan was to bee-pollinate the berry plants.
At the time there were a 100 hives, but the potential was for a thousand.
Smith said he was unable to comment on any of the farming aspects, including the hives, supply agreements or export potential of the berries.