Unlimited potential

At the end of the year 2000 three like-minded grape growers in South Africa came together and created Fruits Unlimited. The group has now established a successful export business that provides growers with the opportunity to enhance their profits.

Fruits Unlimited finds itself in a strong position and is looking at areas for development as it looks to fulfil its aims. Johan Van Niekerk, Riel Malan and Izak Strauss are the three growers who decided to combine their efforts. The decision was taken in a bid to extend the export window with an improved season length from early on right through to season end. Van Niekerk explains: “We wanted to make the most of our opportunities of scale. The idea of creating an export company was to create an extension of farming operations. We wish to effectively satisfy the needs of all our stakeholders in the fruit industry by adding maximum value for all.”

The company opened its offices in May 2001 and began procuring fruit from other growers. Van Niekerk outlines the intentions of the company. “If growers select to export through Fruits Unlimited they have the best of both worlds ñ market access and cost effectiveness with regards to exporting and a truly open-book system so all the growers we work with can view exactly what is taking place within the company.”

The firm is now working with an increasing number of growers but ensures that any new grower undergoes a vigorous procedure of checks before any agreement is reached. “Everything we do is market driven we do not try and make speculative gains,” says Van Niekerk. “When we procure new growers we thoroughly check the quality history and we target grapes for a specific worldwide order. It is important we assess whether more fruit is needed so we look at the crop estimates, checking whether it fits in with our programmes. Quality and timing is everything in this industry and we will achieve our goals by working with only the best farms.”

In this industry, forming good long-term relationships is essential, Van Niekerk adds: “When assessing new markets we have to carefully consider whether we can build lasting relationships. We have to ask ourselves is this person adding value to our business and does the price match the service.”

Fruits Unlimited is also in the advantageous position of having a great deal of detailed knowledge at the company. It now has a team of 22 people. “We have a very hands-on approach with the farmers we work with and have a wide base of technical knowledge in-house at our disposal,” says Van Niekerk.

Looking at future growth the company is keen to expand further its sendings into the UK, Europe and the Far East. In the long-term Van Niekerk believes that it has to ensure quality is right when increasing volume. “In the end it's all about our brand name and image so we have to ensure produce meets our criteria,” he says.

The UK and Far Eastern market are strongholds for Fruits Unlimited and the fact that the two regions do not compete in terms of specification is good news for the business. “Our Far East market is a success, the business we have developed is largely built on good relationships and a maintained quality performance,” says Van Niekerk. “If the importer makes good money then this is viewed as a good relationship. In the Far East less than half the grapes are eaten and on a lot of occasions they are given as gifts.”

In the UK the market couldn't be more different. “The UK market is not as sensitive to extra size and consumers buy the grapes with the sole purpose of eating them, unlike the Far East consumers,” explains Van Niekerk. “The looks of the grape are crucial in the UK market as is the taste, with packaging also coming to the fore.”

The company's grapes reach Sainsbury's, Tesco and M&S in the UK. “We have built good relationships in the UK, which are key to our business and do not want to be everything to everyone,” says Van Niekerk. “We would also like to work with Waitrose though.”

Trialling of new varieties is another closely watched area. “We are working on the Ralli seedless which we feel could prosper in the UK,” he says.

The company enjoys working with a small number of bigger growers' in order to understand each other's needs and requirements. “Bigger growers have bigger quality controls, we also find them easy to communicate with and they are market driven rather than production driven, which is important as they understand our business needs,” he says. “We also make efforts for the receivers to meet growers, and now the growers can see their demands being met. We feel it's necessary to try and to educate our growers on the export process.” Monthly study groups are held for all growers and are co-ordinated by the company.

Fruits Unlimited has expanded into exporting stonefruit and citrus. “We're now widening our net, procuring fruit from Namibia, the Northern Province and the Eastern Cape area. Our company offers a very low commission fee and we are now keen to market further in Europe, US, Africa and Middle East. We have great market access and over the three years since we began we offer very good returns,” says Van Niekerk.

Although the company wishes to grow and move forward, it is conscious that it should not develop too quickly. “We're sticking to our culture, with every step we grow ñ we spend more money and employ more people. We have supplied 3.5 million boxes of grapes this year, of which 120,000 boxes were organic,” explains Van Niekerk. “This amounts to approximately eight per cent of the market. We're aiming for around 10-15 per cent of the total. We don't want to be the biggest but we definitely want to be the best.”

The company has just begun working with Komsberg Farming, which is based in Namibia. Van Niekerk explains: “We want to work with like-minded people and Michael Louis, Komsberg's managing director, got in touch with us as he could see what we were doing and he wants to work in a similar fashion and importantly this its first EurepGAP year.”

In 1994 Louis became a member of parliament of the Western Cape for the African Christian Democratic Party. He has now become involved in farming with the intention of putting something back into the community.

“South African growers and exporters need to look at the bigger picture. It is our opportunity to empower and uplift people. At Komsberg we aim to do this. We have donated 450 hectares to an empowerment programme and donated 12 million rand we now intend to run extensive training programmes and with our quality products we are confident for the future,” he says.

The project intends to benefit 6,000 people and the message is clear. “We want to find a way of creating employment and for people to be self-sufficient,” says Louis. Besides job creation and land ownership the plan is to provide housing and crèche facilities and a justifiable economic development was the key driver.

The company is also applying for FairTrade, but Louis is not content to stop there. “Our motives must be sincere to make a difference. We want to help generate income and feel this can be done by kick-starting the economic flow of money into Namibia.”

The company is aiming to produce 250,000 cartons of a mixture of variety of grapes and are keen to get their produce into the UK. There are currently 500 people working on the farm and in peak season this rises to 1,000. Louis explains his plans. “We want to have somewhere between 2,500-5,000 people employed within five years.

These plans could be helped by expected harbour improvements, which could be imminent. Luderitz harbour is planning cooling facilities when these are complete export time will be reduced to one week. Louis says: “Exporting from Cape Town takes two weeks, so the week reduction would be critical in getting our produce to its destination.”

The skill base shortage in Namibia means Louis is installing training programmes. “We currently have five managers and four Namibian sub-manager trainees who we want to help and develop,” he says.

The proposal took 18 months in total to put together and the company has been keeping a low profile. “We've been lying in the trenches assessing our competitors and we want to be a little bit different,” he says. “Quality is crucial and we have been very careful in the varieties selected for growing and we are committed to being one of the best export farms in Africa, something that will make Namibia proud. Fruits Unlimited will be exporting our grapes this season to help build our quality image in core markets.”