Officially, South African exporter Colors Fruit still exists as various processes play themselves out behind the scenes.

The truth, however, is that the company – which has made such a dynamic impact on the South African fresh produce export sector in the post deregulation era – has reached the end of the road.

Riaan van Wyk, managing director and founder of Colors, did not say much when Eurofruit spoke to him about the company’s future this week. “We are busy with a number of things, which would also involve ownership of the Colors brand,” he said. “We will need a few more weeks to tie things up.”

Van Wyk hinted that he will not leave the export industry, but will rather, with some close allies, pursue new opportunities.

In industry circles, however, it is an open secret that Colors has all but closed its doors. With that comes the end of an era that saw the company growing from virtually nothing to a dynamic exporter which at one stage sold more than 15m cartons annually. It became one of the brand leaders in South Africa, with innovative strategies which were the envy of its competitors.

One may well ask: where did it all go wrong? During the past few years Colors has been dogged by controversy. Firstly, a management breakaway resulted in a bruising battle between the original shareholders and the breakaway group. Out of this a new exporter, CORE, was born with a resultant dramatic loss of export volumes for Colors.

At that stage Colors had a comprehensive local and international structure, involving a number of fruit farms and packhouses. It was inevitable that, with reduced volumes, this could not be sustained.

While Riaan van Wyk and his team set out to re-establish Colors, pressure on the company mounted.

Next followed a ‘marriage’ with Farmsecure which saw Farmsecure acquiring a major slice of shareholding in Colors. This also did not last, with Farmsecure running into its own financial problems. In the end it resulted in a break-up of the Colors structure, with each shareholder taking a slice of the company.

Finally, there was the bruising court battle for the Sheehan table grape varieties which ended with the recent announcement that SNFL had acquired the sole rights to the Sheehan Genetics table grape varieties in South Africa and Namibia.

It is understood that Riaan van Wyk and his associates have retained interest in another cultivar development programme and that these varieties will form the basis for a new export company which will focus on what is called a ‘boutique’ export business.
What will happen to the once proud Colors brand, remains to be seen. Due to the uncertainty and controversy of the past few years, it is certain that it will have suffered a huge amount of damage too.

The future of Colors Fruit UK is still unclear, but managing director James Nelson told FPJ: 'Colors UK operates as a separate business unit and it is business as usual as far as we are concerned.'

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