Excellent quality coupled with judicious supply chain enhancements are allowing South Africa’s summer citrus deal to weather the recession’s impact on the US consumer in its 10th year of exporting citrus to the US.
“We all knew that 2009 would be one of our most difficult in the US because of the depressed economy and the fact that Chile would be exporting navels to the US for the first time,” said Gerrit van der Merwe, chairman of the Western Cape Citrus Producers’ Forum (WCCPF), which represents almost 350 growers who export citrus to the US.
“We knew that the only way to overcome these challenges was to improve as many aspects of our supply chain as possible and to deliver only the best quality citrus that we were capable of delivering,” he added.
“Apart from benefiting from lower fuel costs, we switched to smaller vessels which gave us greater shipping flexibility. For example, it enabled us to increase the frequency of the availability of our fruit, further ensuring quality, freshness and taste.”
The overall quality of the fruit has been outstanding as a result of favorable weather conditions in South Africa during production and harvesting.
“We also paid particular attention to our quality standards throughout the production and supply chain process and this attention to detail has certainly had an impact on the quality of the fruit,” explained Mr Van der Merwe.
By the time the last of the eight reefers docks in Philadelphia at the end of September, they will have accounted for 85 per cent of imports, while the balance will be shipped by container. Total exports of South African citrus to the US are expected to reach a similar figure as in 2008, at about 35,000 tonnes.
While total shipments of navels will be down in comparison to 2008 quantities, shipments of clementines have increased. “I suspect this is because some consumers have moved to smaller fruit,” noted Mr Van der Merwe. “To some extent we anticipated this and shipped the clementines in larger cartons, which also simplified our supply chain process. On their arrival in the US, we repackaged them into 2lb and 3lb bags which proved to be very popular with consumers.
Mr Van der Merwe said he was heartened by the loyalty shown to the South African navel program on the part of US retailers. “We have achieved this status over the years by building a reputation as reliable providers of superior quality fruit – something that we are very proud of.”
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