Key table grape regions maintain their initial crop estimates despite unprecedented wind delays and operational inefficiencies in Cape Town
All of South Africa’s table grape export regions are maintaining their initial crop estimates, and the national forecast remains unchanged with 79.4mn cartons to be inspected for export.
Up to week 52, Namibia, the other major Southern African exporter, packed 9.4mn cartons for export, 12 per cent more than at the same time last year.
However, frustration is growing about delays and performance inefficiencies in Cape Town.
The Cape Town region has experienced one of its worst ‘wind seasons’ in recent year during November and December. This resulted in delays that forced exporters of table grapes and stonefruit to divert their fruit through other ports.
“Table grape shipments diverted through Eastern Cape ports have increased by approximately 300 per cent compared with the previous season, as producers and exporters have been forced to divert volumes away from the Port of Cape Town,” said Mecia Petersen, chief executive of Sati.
”While this has helped maintain export flows, shipping table grapes via the Eastern Cape comes at a significant additional cost to both exporters and producers.”
While acknowledging the unusually high wind delays recorded at the Port of Cape Town in November and December, the industry said that operational challenges such as equipment breakdowns and staffing issues over the festive season also contributed to delays and a backlog in shipments out of the Cape Town Container Terminal (CTCT), placing producers and exporters at risk of losses running into hundreds of millions of rand.
Antoinette van Heerden, Fresh Produce Exporters’ Forum logistics affairs manager, recorded in Sati’s trade newsletter that CTCT experienced 414 hours of wind delays in November 2025 (compared with 265 hours in November 2024) and 349 hours of wind delays in December 2025 (compared with 127 hours in 2024).
Namibian and South African exporters have utilised the ports of Walvis Bay, Cape Town and the Eastern Cape so far this season.
Observers said they can understand the frustrations caused by wind-delays in Cape Town.
This is normally prevalent in November, December and parts of January, when the stonefruit and apple and pear seasons are also moving to a peak.
They said further logistical interventions will be required in future to counter this.
