South Africa
Country Member Summary
Adapted from the report by Berries South Africa
With a range of challenges across global berry markets during the Southern Hemisphere blueberry season, South
Africa experienced another successful year of export growth. The 27% year-on-year increase gives the local
industry much to be positive about. Continental Europe contributed primarily to this growth, together with
contributions from the ongoing Middle and Far East Markets. The UK remains a steady partner of South
Africa.
Conservative production forecasts remain in the 35,000-metric-ton (MT) range for the 2022/23 season with a
25% increase in export. Improved servicing of existing markets, together with the ongoing opportunities into
new market access, account for this.
Berries South Africa, the industry body for blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, continues to
facilitate the growth of the commodities through the promotion of accurate data consolidation and sharing,
market access efforts, a technical focus on prioritized fields of research, and registrations of
agrichemical products ensuring compliance with international standards. Strategic priorities within the
industry body are aligned to the demands of the sector where quality, logistical efficiencies, and the
significant impact of spiking input costs are critical sustainability challenges.
With an increasing contribution to the thriving South African fruit export market, Berries South Africa has
increased its executive capacity by appointing Brent Walsh as its CEO. Stakeholder engagement remains a
priority within the executive team across growers, plant breeders, nurseries, exporters, and statutory
entities contributing to the energy that drives the ongoing success of the Southern African market. It
continues to be an exciting time for blueberries in South Africa and we look forward to the season that lies
ahead.
South Africa
Report Team Narrative
As a technically astute industry dominated by large vertically integrated international programs, South
Africa’s blueberry sector has a relatively high proportion of proprietary genetics and substrate production,
peaking in October and November, overlapping with Peru and shipping mostly to Europe. The bulk of the season
goes from August to late December.
South Africa is one of the world’s fastest-growing blueberry exporters, hitting new records in the 2021-22
season although this was short of expectations by several thousand metric tons (MT) due to weather
problems.
After a positive early start in June and July 2021, growers in northern South Africa were hit by frost with
some losing 50% of their crop for the second consecutive year. Then in the later part of the season in the
Western Cape – a region that accounts for 60% of the country’s production – there were high levels of
rainfall for a crop that was already running later than normal, necessitating more intensive agronomic
management to avoid pest and botrytis damage. For the 12% of farms that are in tunnels this was not such an
issue, but the majority of operations in South Africa have net shading – a structure that does not provide
adequate protection from precipitation.
These production challenges were exacerbated by ongoing port challenges, which in South Africa are not just
the kind of congestion issues seen everywhere due to covid, but are also related to the slow deterioration
of port infrastructure over the course of more than a decade, compounded by volume growth for numerous fruit
crops that also compete with blueberries for space. Windy conditions at sea and in the Port of Cape Town led
to further delays in December, and some shipping services bypassed the port altogether.
From what used to be a 20-day journey, port delays last year meant some blueberry shipments were taking 40
days or more from being picked to reaching supermarket shelves in the UK and continental Europe. With fewer
airfreight options available due to the pandemic, these circumstances made shelf life a greater imperative
than ever before as only varieties that are fit for longer journeys can survive such a long trip and still
give consumers a positive eating experience.
This logistical problem was almost doubly harder for other Southern African emerging blueberry industries
such as Zimbabwe and Zambia (to be discussed in more detail further down), which had fewer airfreight
options than pre-covid times and were thus more heavily reliant on re-export through South African ports.
This implied an even longer journey for growers in those countries if they could not secure air freight
cargo, not just for the truck journey but also longer wait times at international borders.
In a competitive market with tightening margins due to rising input costs such as fertilizers and crop
protection chemicals, smaller farmers in South Africa are feeling the financial pinch. Increasing volumes
from Peru, and to a lesser extent South Africa itself as more large farms enter maturity, will create
further strain. There is a broad consensus that more farm-level consolidation is likely, and a lot of farms
of less than 10-hectares in size, particularly if their genetics is mostly from public varieties, will fall
by the wayside in this environment. Labor costs have also risen sharply but are widely seen as manageable,
so much so that interest in machine harvesting is practically nil.
In this context, banks are giving out fewer loans to local South African growers, and most industry insiders
expect planting growth to slow down. However, international markets will not feel that volume-wise in the
short-term because so much planting has taken place in recent years that is still yet to reach maturity, so
healthy growth will nonetheless continue.
South Africa’s fruit brand image is highly regarded globally, and it still maintains a competitive advantage
in proximity to the European market versus other Southern Hemisphere countries. It is likely for this reason
that there is still significant interest to invest in blueberry operations in South Africa, in addition to
other nearby countries such as Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. So while there is less conversion happening
with, for example, apple farms switching to blueberries with local financing, global berry companies and
private equity players are continuing to roll out greenfield projects. In South Africa, this is mostly
happening in the Western Cape and Limpopo to the north.
At the same time, more international plant breeders, nurseries and growers are entering the region that
already is home to the world’s leading names in genetics. Three leading Australian breeding programs have
historically accounted for the lion’s share of growth in the proprietary genetics space in southern Africa.
Now other programs are present and expanding from the U.S., both private and university-based, Spain and
elsewhere, including a fourth, recently introduced Australian program.
The UK remains South Africa’s largest market, followed by Europe where the industry is attempting to lift its
market share in Germany specifically where earlier this year Berries ZA launched a business-to-business
promotional campaign. The country exports some volume to the Middle East, and is behind its Southern
Hemisphere peers in negotiating access to the biggest blueberry markets of Asia, but the industry has a
presence in that continent’s open markets such as Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
