Challenging pome fruit marketing season ahead

The 2022 pome fruit marketing season will go down as one of the most complex in years.

This was according to Conrad Fick, marketing director of Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing. He said during a recent media briefing that fruit exporters usually had to juggle only a few challenges in a few markets each year. However, this year, decisionmaking was made difficult by many variables at play.

“To further complicate things, other Southern Hemisphere countries, such as New Zealand, Argentina and Chile, are in the same position as [South Africa], and it’s uncertain how they will solve these problems and how their decisions will affect the market,” Fick said.

Roelf Pienaar, managing director of Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing, identified container shortages and shipping costs as challenges, with freight costs doubling and even tripling on some routes. Examples were the Far East, which accounted for 29% and 22% of South Africa’s apple and pear exports respectively, and the Middle East, which made up 9% and 17% of apple and pear exports respectively.

Delays at the Cape Town harbour were also forcing exporters such as Tru-Cape to send some of their fruit straight to the harbours in Gqeberha and Durban, which was driving up costs and adding to road congestion.

Trade was also hampered in some markets in the Far East, such as Hong Kong, due to strict COVID-19 restrictions.

In addition, most countries were experiencing high and, in the case of Europe and the US, record-high inflation, which was driving up costs from field to fork and putting pressure on market prices.

The geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe were also threatening market access to Russia, which accounted for about 21% and 6% of South Africa’s pear and apple exports respectively.

“The conflict could have an impact on trade routes which, in the event of sanctions or an embargo, could be disastrous for fruit marketing,” Pienaar said.

On the positive side, the opening of new markets, such as China for pears, and the potential opening of markets in Thailand, the Philippines and Taiwan, would help to diversity market risks and reduce pressure on existing markets. Growth in these markets would, however, be slow to start, as was the case when exports opened for apples to China, according to Pienaar.

“While our traditional markets, such as the EU and UK, will remain important, future growth will come from the Far and Middle East. There’s also room to further develop our African footprint, but this needs to be managed carefully, as the market is dominated by small traders and a poor cold chain,” Pienaar said.

Another positive factor was that the EU and UK markets had relatively low reserves of pears and apples. However, Pienaar said this could change quickly if the market were flooded with fruit from local or other Southern Hemisphere exporters.

FW ARCHIVE There is room for local pome fruit exporters to further develop South Africa‘s footprint elsewhere in Africa, according to industry stakeholders.