De Keur is a 90-year-old Ceres-based grower-exporter who, going back two generations, shares DNA with Dutoit Agri. High in the Witzenberg Mountains where Koue Bokkeveld apples obtain their renowned color, De Keur also grows its small parcel of cherries to be packed into the Dutoit Cherry Time brand.
Cape brown onions are planted on 210 hectares, giving De Keur an annual yield of 14,500 tonnes.
Some of their nectarines and pear blocks are also situated in the Koue Bokkeveld, and some of the nectarines and pears are along with their blueberries in Wolseley.
Premium top fruit country
The Koue Bokkeveld is a premium topfruit country where apple farmers enjoy a big advantage: harvesting is never delayed by slow colouring and fruit need not hang longer than it should. On the other hand, at such high altitude sunburn is the Koue Bokkeveld's biggest challenge for which reason they're getting all of their bicoloureds under nets, says Cathrine Smuts, general manager of De Keur Marketing.
The Golden crop in the Koue Bokkeveld is a bit down, she remarks, but other apple varieties and pears are right on budget. "Nothing to be worried about regarding volumes," adds her colleague Debbie Schreuder. De Keur is steadily expanding on its bicolored and Forelle supplies. De Keur Marketing sells all of its own top fruit and nectarines, taking in a fifth besides from external partners.
Being growers and packers themselves, Smuts points out, they understand the implications of all the line items and the final return back to the grower. An example they give would be double-layer or single-layer cartons versus the more affordable 12.6 kg carton.
"We understand all the costs involved, from picking to tipping to packing. We want to pack the whole bin, and we aim to add value to everything sent here. We don't cherrypick," Schreuder states.
De Keur general manager Cathrine Smuts with Debbie Schreuder, marketing manager
Africa's proximity makes it a natural trade partner
This is South African apples' post-Europe era when the fruit goes all over: many South East Asian countries are taking increasing amounts of their top fruit – Thailand recently re-opened on apples, and Indonesia is open for South African pears, but not its apples.
Royal Gala is the most versatile apple variety to market, Schreuder remarks. It can be sent anywhere in the world, from east to west. "The Koue Bokkeveld microclimate is very favorable to Pink Lady grown mostly for the UK, East Africa, and Europe."
She adds that Africa is a very good apple market. "it's a growing market and it's right on our doorstep."
Cripps Red (or Joya, if 60% or more of its peel is red) supports this trade in Africa and the Far East, but De Keur likes to keep some for the end of the domestic apple season because of its long storage life.
Apple and pear exports reduce as the year marches on. "We prefer supplying the local market at the end of the season, rather than exporting. The first six months of the year is a bit more challenging on the domestic apple and pear market, but towards the end, prices improve."
35 years of supplying Freshmark with onions
Longday brown onions are marketed in the Koue Bokkeveld from January until August, by which time growers in the north of the country enter with their shortday onions.
De Keur supplies Freshmark with 14,500 tonnes of Cape brown onions every year
Many onion growers around De Keur export onions: around 1.3 million 10kg bags of Koue Bokkeveld onions are annually exported to mainly Europe and the UK. De Keur prefers to keep to its program for Shoprite Checkers, sending close to 15,000 tonnes over the pack line for supermarket programs and the domestic market and into sixteen different forms of packaging. They've been doing business with Freshmark for 35 years.
Their thirty hectares of Ozblu blueberries will probably not expand any further. She observes that because too much was planted across the province, a lot of people are now taking out their bushes. There are low prices during the Western Cape's blueberry season which overlaps with Peru's. But she has faith in the varieties De Keur is growing for United Exports.
"We are in it for the long run. If you belong to a certain variety group, then you have a better chance than open varieties."
De Keur grows blueberries for United Exports
Regenerative farming
It is an era of increased scrutiny of farming practices. They welcome the questions that clients in the UK and the EU are increasingly putting to them regarding how the food is grown, but they're firm that they're following regenerative principles first and foremost because of their interest in their soil health.
That it finds favor among their clients is a definite plus, but they're not doing it to put a sticker on a box, Smuts says. A colleague trained up in the praxis of regenerative agriculture some years ago, running an onsite lab to test soil health. During winter, chickens, sheep, and heifers are given the run of the harvested orchards.
It has been easier to work regenerative concepts into a perennial orchard than into an annual cropping cycle like onions where weed competition becomes fierce under this regime.
For more information:
Cathrine Smuts
De Keur Marketing
Tel: +27 23 315 5603
Email: Operations@dekeur.co.za
https://www.dekeur.com/