Tru-Cape ends off a strong year with a song and a dance
Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing was founded in 2001 and is equally owned by the growers of Ceres Fruit Growers (founded in 1923) and Two-a-Day (founded in 1921). Today Tru-Cape, approaching its 21-year in business, is the largest exporter of South African apples and pears with volume of close to 18 million cartons. Most of its external (non-shareholder) volume comes from growers in the Langkloof region.
According to Tru-Cape Managing Director, Roelf Pienaar, more than 7,035 hectares of apples and pears are planted of which 25% is five-years old or younger. 67% of the Tru-Cape volume is exported while 33% is sold on the local market. Tru-Cape exports about 25% of all South African apples and 22% of South African pears into 105 countries. “Over half our volume is sold on the African continent including South Africa and we are proud to sell our fruit into 51 out of 54 countries north of our borders, with the bulk going into West Africa, and Nigeria in particular, and the rest into Kenya and East Africa,” Pienaar says.
“There were various challenges this year, fluctuating foreign-exchange rates; Covid-19 and its impact on market lockdowns and logistics: equipment availability, increasing shipping costs and massive delays and often ports skipped. Low economic growth also weighed on us. The good news is that this was a record year for Tru-Cape with volume close to 18 million cartons of fruit; we grew our footprint and the Tru-Cape brand in the Far and Middle Eastern markets, and we saw good growth in apple sales to Europe. Close to 68% of our sales are in foreign-exchange currencies with the bulk in US Dollar,” Pienaar says.
“While early days, we foresee that the logistical challenges will continue. We see inflation rising in South Africa and globally and an even greater growth of the discounters who will want to push prices down for their customers. To try to mitigate the impact of downward price pressure on our final returns to the grower we need to continue to unlock value for our growers which will include consolidating and establishing joint-ventures within the value chain to achieve this. The possibility of greater market access in China for pears and Thailand for apples is very positive.
“Our strategy continues to be getting closer to retailers and understanding the needs of our customers. It is important that we visit the markets in which we trade to fully understand the opportunities and risks. As much as Zoom and other virtual platforms have allowed us to continue to operate there is no real substitute for sitting across the table from someone and our teams have already began travelling again,” Pienaar ends.
Tru-Cape, Marketing Director, Conrad Fick, says that the launch of Takeaways from Nature, the song written by Gian Groen and performed by Sunset Sweatshop, is a good example of Tru-Cape’s focus on innovating and capturing hearts and minds in new ways. “Last month Tru-Cape launched Granny’s Bakery an update to our popular edutainment app game, Fruit-Full, and we are confident that people will be tapping their toes to Takeaways From Nature in no time.” Fick ends.
Click here to watch Takeaways from Nature as performance by Sunset Sweatshop. Click here to download the game at the App Store or Google Play here. Find the song on Apple Music and Spotify.
