Growing strawberries is very intense, observes Jonathan Miller, technical director of Redberry Farm in Blanco, Southern Cape, where the first strawberries were established 22 years ago.
“Strawberries are a funny game, as my dad always says: things can change very quickly. We have found our rhythm from learning from our mistakes."
Over the past three or four years they have ramped up their strawberry exports a lot, he says.
“Around 60% of our crop goes for export, while last year it was like 50%. The export market in the Middle East is, however, a very volatile market and should be approached cautiously when exporting any soft fruit.”
Redberry Farm is still exporting this time of the year, although the crop on the short day varieties which fare best in their area, is winding down. Exporters Afriberry and Toro Fruit sell their branded fruit mostly to Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Strawberry exporting is tricky; the most they can hope for is twelve days of shelf life. “Small mistakes with the cold chain can cost you quite a lot. We are mostly flying out from Johannesburg where flights are more frequent. For the past few weeks we haven’t been able to send much from Cape Town because of fuel shortages and frequency of flights.”
Due to their neighbour’s (PHC) initiative of changing the export customers’ demands by introducing different types of packaging, sales of the one kilogram white export box have picked up in the Middle East this year, Jonathan notes, and with this packaging slightly more volume can be moved per flight.
Risk of domestic strawberry oversupply
Their export box is designed to be distinguished from their locally marketed box.
Demand for 1kg boxes of strawberries has grown in the Middle East (photos supplied by Redberry Farm)
“The big worry is sometimes we send the riper fruit to local markets in Johannesburg and Cape Town and the risk exists that the fruit is bought there and without our knowledge exported to the Middle East, when it was not intended for exports. This is when we unintentionally start competing with ourselves due to different suppliers having the same brand but a very different quality product, resulting in prices dropping.”
Especially given the oversupply building on the domestic market and poor prices during September when strawberry growers from all across the country are cropping, growers could increasingly look to export more, he observes, which would put pressure on South Africa’s reputation in the Middle East.
“We’ve seen really low market prices when everyone peaks. You’re literally just paying for packaging,” he remarks. “For us who have been growing strawberries for a while and have the necessary systems in place, it’s good that the industry is growing but the risk of oversupply is worrying in the long term, especially if the demand doesn’t grow with the supply.”
They’d like to prevent strawberries going in the direction of the blueberry industry, he says, where domestic and international oversupply during specific windows in the year have brought down prices over the past three seasons.
There are newcomers to strawberries but only two nurseries supplying South African growers with strawberry plant material for the constant re-establishment, which constrains the availability of plant material.
Expansion of out-of-season strawberries & kiwis
“We want to expand on the out-of-season strawberry crop, by planting now for fruit in January, February and March. In most areas it is difficult to grow strawberries during peak summer months, however, George doesn’t get too hot, therefore we can capitalize on the better local prices. Stellenbosch is also still going but they slow down earlier than us, and when they stop it’s just us in the Southern Cape and Hankey in the Eastern Cape.”
He continues: “We get good prices on the market in October but we also struggle with heat and quality, so you have to look at juicing and freezing and it becomes more tricky towards the end of November to keep up with harvesting and quality.”
Years of trial and total disaster with varieties from Israel and California that flourished vegetatively but didn’t bloom, led Jonathan’s father Mark Peter Miller to the realisation that in the Southern Cape they needed to plant short day varieties mostly (with some day neutrals for the off-season).
It still left them with a gap in March and April, which they’ve now filled with Soreli golden kiwis and kiwiberries. The latter starts in February followed by the golden kiwis a month later.
“It’s a nice rhythm we’ve got going with most of the strawberry blocks finishing in December, and we are only planting again by the end of March or April,“ he says.
“We’ve had two crops now from our golden Soreli kiwis and this year we had our first crop of kiwiberries. They fall nicely between our strawberries and it’s something we’ll be looking to expand,” he says.
Good scope for golden kiwi exports
Toro Fruit has exported their golden kiwis to the Middle East. He remarks that there is scope to move good kiwi volumes to the Middle East and Europe.
“So far from what we’ve heard the South African quality on the golden kiwis are right up there. If we can just continue keeping the quality as good as possible.”
Their region comes in four to six weeks after the other South African farms where golden kiwis are harvested; Redberry Farm starts by the middle to the end of March, giving them a slim window before New Zealand.
This past season they packed their kiwis in their strawberry packhouse (a converted mushroom packhouse) but with the larger crop they’re expecting coming season, they’ll be moving the kiwis over to a nearby avocado packhouse.
“We’re still trying to gauge the local market for the kiwiberry. We’re working with Freshmark on that and we’ve got our local shop here on the farm which helps to spread awareness of the niche crop,” he says.
“I find kiwiberries very sweet compared to normal kiwis. We’re used to berries, that’s why we opted to go for a niche crop.”
For more information:
Jonathan Miller
Redberry Farm
Email: sales@redberryfarm.co.za
https://www.redberryfarm.co.za/