South Africa’s grape export season faces challenges from severe port delays and growing competition from Peru and Chile
In November, the Port of Cape Town experienced 414 hours of weather-related delays, further exacerbated by 22 hours of network downtime.
This marked the highest recorded wind delays of the past five years, and emphasised the problems that South African logistics operators have to deal with during the early part of the season.
In dealing with this, the South African industry again showed remarkable resolve to service their customers during the important pre-Christmas period.
Logistics operators said they used multiple ports, in Namibia, the Eastern Cape and Cape Town during the period.
In some cases, vessels sailed leaving significant numbers of containers behind, to maintain their schedules.
The famous South African Cape Doctor, the south easterly wind which is normally credited with keeping Cape Town free of pollution, continued during early December.
The delays resulting from the wind disrupted early arrivals in Europe, and higher than usual volumes will be landed in South Africa’s most important grape markets this season.
While South Africa is still expected to ship around 80mn cartons this season, exporters note that there are changes in production and supply patters which will have to be considered in future.
Charl du Bois, managing director of Capespan, told delegates at the most recent South African Table Grape Industry (Sati) marketing meeting that the window for Southern Hemisphere table grapes continues to become more competitive.
This is because South Africa’s peak table grape export weeks, from week 49 to week 8, coincide with peak weeks for Peru, in the earlier part of the season, and Chile, in the later part of the campaign.
“There has been an increase in grape volumes from the Southern Hemisphere producing countries over the past three years, while there has also been a change in the cultivar composition produced by South Africa, Peru and Chile,” said du Bois.
“For example, over the last ten years, the share of new, higher-yielding cultivars in the table grape export basket produced by Chile increased from 8 per cent to 72 per cent.”
This season will be affected by Northern Hemisphere grape-producing countries having had their longest production window for many years, he continued, while large volumes are predicted from most Southern Hemisphere-producing countries.
“There has been a slight delay to the start of the Namibian and South African seasons, exacerbated by the logistical delays, but both countries expect a favourable season in terms of crop size and quality,” du Bois outlined.
“There will most likely not be a short supply of grapes during the Southern Hemisphere season before February 2026.
”In a full market, any fruit arriving in less-than-ideal condition will face disproportionately tougher rejection or price penalties, emphasising the need for producers and exporters to focus on quality and consistency of supply,” he concluded.
