Cadmium disaster drives pineapple producer's new tack

Summerpride Foods, based in East London, previously produced canned pineapple chunks and rings. The change to pineapple concentrate has reduced its manufacturing process to a tenth of what it was and cut overheads.

This cost reduction helped keep the industry afloat during a crisis. In August 2007, two factories in East London merged, Collondale Cannery and Summerpride Foods. The Summerpride name was kept.

With canned chunks and rings a thing of the past, Summerpride Foods was able to eliminate the use of tins, labels and cartons.

Tin plate to make cans was the company's largest expense. Now, the concentrate is shipped overseas in reconditioned 210l drums.

Summerpride Foods MD Pierre Tilney says: “There is a shortage of concentrate overseas and the price of it is climbing; it's 45% higher than last year.”

The pineapple business — farming and processing — suffered a devastating blow in 2007 due to the use of Chinese fertiliser that had a high level of cadmium. It was imported in bulk by a JSE-listed company and used by commercial pineapple farmers.

The effect was first seen in a consignment of canned pineapples exported to Sweden in December 2006. The fruit was found to have more cadmium than the European Union limit of 0,02mg/kg.

The cadmium was traced to the fertiliser; the crops were tainted and the damage was done as Europe is SA's largest pineapple product importer.

Cadmium could have been a catastrophe

Summerpride had to “think outside the carton”. Chairman Mark Harris says: “The cadmium issue could have killed us; it had a massive impact on the industry. I'd hate to put a figure on it — in terms of job losses from the farms to the factory. We could have fallen in a heap, but it resulted in forced diversification; we had to re-examine the business and make a change.”

One advantage of producing concentrate for juice-making is that the factory makes 30-ton batches, so testing for cadmium is easier; it was not possible to test every can.

Harris says: “We had three or four years of low overseas selling prices coinciding with overproduction and a strong rand…. Farmers reduced plantings and focused on other projects. And then the cadmium thing hit, so pineapple volumes have reduced.”

The industry is suing for losses incurred from using the fertiliser and is waiting for a court date.

Harris, who is also the largest commercial pineapple grower, says planting has picked up. Next year will be the lowest in volumes — 20% down on this year — but they will be up in 2011. About 30 farms supply Summerpride. “The optimum harvest for the factory is 120000 tons a year.”

Tilney says: “We expect to process about 93000 tons of raw pineapple this year — this produces close to 13000 tons of concentrate and equals 675 shipping containers.” He expects to receive 77000 tons of raw fruit next year.

Summerpride's revenue last year totalled R156m.

All canned pineapples on supermarket shelves in SA have been imported, mainly from Swaziland, where Rhodes has a cannery.

Source: Business Day

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