Ceres-based farming enterprise Laastedrif Agri is undertaking a value-adding deep dive into the 38,000 tons of vegetables they annually harvest from their farms lying on a roughly west-east axis from Elands Bay at sea level to the eponymous farm 1,250 meters above sea level and beyond into the semi-desert Karoo.
"There's no better area for apples than up the mountains," says Rossouw Cillié, while lower-down premium Cape brown onions are grown
Laastedrif harvests carrots and beetroot almost every day of the year and onions seasonal for their fixed supermarket programs. They mostly grow the longday brown onion, with 8 to 10% red onions. Onions are stored in open sheds until the middle of June and in cold rooms until August or September. Longday onions are in constant demand from retail demand because they can't be grown in the north of the country. Therefore, due to high domestic demand, Laastedrif Agri rarely exports onions.
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Broccoli and cauliflower, butternut, squash and pumpkin, and sometimes sweet potatoes, however, need a different plan. "If you don't do value-adding to butternut, why would you plant it unlimited? It would just buckle the local market. We have invested a lot in value-adding and processing. It's not just cut-and-dice for bulk, 10kg or 7kg bags. It has become a 1 or 2kg bag as well," says Rossouw Cillié, scion of the family. His family includes Piet "California" Cillié, his great-grandfather, who was sent in 1887 by the government to California to do research on fruit production.
"We are adding a 100% value-adding component to everything we already have. At the end of the day, everyone's talking about food prices and food security but for me, the biggest one is food wastage. About 35% of food is currently wasted in the total chain. You don't have to have perfect carrots. That's something we have to look at."
Laastedrif Agri is the only company in South Africa doing beetroot in vac packs
He continues: "Before we're not adding value to each carrot and each beetroot, I don't see any sense in buying in more tonnage. Our focus is not to go out and get more land." As new product lines are developed and added, the hope is that processed vegetable exports will grow. Laastedrif Agri already works with G's Fresh and supplies Bar Foods in the United Kingdom.
View more photos from the visit to Laastedrif Agri
A longer shelf life is another good reason for value-adding. Their True Roots range (referring to what supports the Cillié family tree, tracing its heritage back to French Huguenots three centuries ago) includes prepared ready-to-eat vegetables in various flavors. These flavors include delicate curry, sweet and sour tones, and vinegar-infused products.
Laastedrif Agri is the only company in South Africa doing beetroot in vac packs and was the South African supplier to the Love Beets brand.
"Vegetable crisps from our butternuts, sweet potatoes, beetroot, and pumpkin is not really a big line yet, but if you can do this niche, it just adds yet another alternative to the health-conscious consumer," Cillié reckons.
Fruit marketing benefits from critical mass
Laastedrif Agri produces 20,000 tons of apples, pears, and stonefruit on various farms. Unlike the vegetables for whose market placement they are entirely responsible, the fruit is packed with a group of other topfruit farmers at Ceres Fruit Growers, and sold by TruCape.
The principle of fruit consolidation to reach critical mass is fundamental in this area: Laastedrif is via CFG a stakeholder of APL (Apples Pears Lemons), a packaging company established by fruit farmers and of Ceres Fruit Processors that converts processing fruit to concentrate. Cillié remarks that topfruit juice prices are good at the moment.
View more photos from the visit to Laastedrif Agri
The highlying Laastedrif farm in Bo-Swaarmoed can get 50cm, up to 60cm of snow in winter: "There's no better area for apples than up the mountains," he says. "We start with Gala types, like Royal Beaut and Flash Gala, and then it'll be Golden Delicious and some Kanzi. Then the red ones: Starking and Top Red. Red Delicious follows, before the Fujis."
New additions include Cosmic Crisp and Inored Story, being commercially trialed. Gala types like Royal Beaut and Flash Gala are the fastest growing new varieties because of the lower licensing fees. Royal Beaut only has a tree royalty. The sales commissions on some cultivars, Cillié remarks, can exceed a farmer's on-farm revenue.
Rossouw and Daniël Cillié of Laastedrif Agri
On the neighboring farm Uitkoms, lower down the Matroosberg, the focus is on Forelle, Forelle, Forelle, plus a few blush varieties like Cheeky, Cape Blush, and Rosemarie before the Forelle harvest starts. A pear basket would be incomplete without a strong Forelle component. At Uitkoms is also a stonefruit basket filled with peaches, nectarines, apricots, and plums.
View more photos from the visit to Laastedrif Agri
For more information:
Rossouw Cillié
Laastedrif Agri
Tel: +27 23 316 2366
Email: info@cillie.co.za
https://www.laastedrif.co.za/