Sutton the Lona ranger

South African citrus exporter Lona Trading was founded in 1996 as a vegetable exporter, but quickly made its mark as a specialist exporter of fresh South African fruit. Even before deregulation of the country’s fruit industry, the firm prospered and had grown into one of South Africa’s largest exporters of fresh produce. An introspective and self-analytical policy, which aimed to meet the needs of rapidly changing global markets, demanded that the firm reconstitute itself into separate fruit business units within the Lona structure, and eventually to focus 100 per cent on citrus. Director Derek Sutton talks to Tommy Leighton.