South Africa: Exponential growth in 2006

It has always been Well Pict European’s belief that how ever good a marketer you employ, real new business comes from providing new varieties or existing varieties from new sources. In South Africa, WPE have worked to achieve both these over the last 4 years. At their location in George, WPE can produce berries for 12 months of the year, something they have achieved for supplying the home market.

After the success of their first exports of South African fruit to the UK in 2005, WPE have increased their production considerably by the purchase of Fragro Farm, George. This farm will add another 2.88ha of tunnelled production, however, with an Israeli vertical growing system in place it is the equivalent of 21ha, there is also 3.7ha of outdoor production at the site.

All the protected production will be planted with 592 or Endurance, with 41,000 plants per tunnel. Prior to purchasing the farm WPE had let the previous owner Outeniqua Berry Ventures trial 592 in two of their thirty tunnels. The trial proved very successful with variety yielding consistently good quality fruit. Having taken the Plant Sciences varieties through quarantine and built up commercial volumes of plants, WPE are using the very successful Sabrosa from the Planasa breeding program. Technical Director David Johnston believes the variety can flourish in SA just as it has done in Spain and Portugal.

The Well Pict team is busy preparing the farm for its first year of production under the Well Pict European banner. Initially there was a lot of work to “tidy” up the farm, the tunnels and the outdoor sites, which had become weed infested and this needed to be addressed before replanting could take place. Heading up the team is Renier Claasen. Renier has experience from a WPE farm in the UK and has also been working for WPE in South Africa on one of their smaller production sites.

The first production from the open fields should start around August, with the protected production coming on from about mid September. Both will peak between October and December – just right for exports to WPE in the UK. The 592 normally takes a dip from mid December until the end of January, then comes back for another flush.

This expanded productions means WPE will be investing in further packhouse developments, with the aim to have a packhouse sited on the new farm.

Well Pict European Manager Chris Charter said “the focus for the 2006 season is exports, this jump in production gives us much needed volume and will bring economies of scale to the project for the first time”.

April 2006