Deflated returns on export fruit sales, escalating production costs, exorbitant logistics costs and inefficiency and ineffectiveness at port level are converging to threaten the future of SA's fruit growing industry.
This is the stark warning from Justin Chadwick, chairman of Fruit SA (FSA), issued in the run-up to the inaugural Cool Logistics Africa conference in Cape Town this April.
In an open conference letter, FSA called on the perishable logistics and transport sectors to rise to the current challenges in a "united and positive manner" alongside SA's fruit growers and exporters, in order to "preserve this industry's 100 year old heritage and safeguard it for the next generation".
"The fruit export supply chain needs to work, and work efficiently and effectively, if this industry is to weather these hard times," says Chadwick.
"Everybody in the supply chain stands to lose if we don't all focus on this issue collectively. If we don't, then our principals - the growers - will be the first to lose and the 400,000 farm workers who support them will suffer the most. But it will eventually affect us all at some point in time if we don't rise to the challenge."
Chadwick continued: "We understand the competitive nature of those in the export chain, but everyone shares the frustration about the current inefficiencies.
"We shouldn't shrug our shoulders and accept the fact that the losses from inefficiency will just get passed on over the farm gate. We are all indebted to this industry to ensure our growers remain sustainable and the farm workers and their families all prosper."
FSA and its affiliated members the Fresh Producer Exports Forum (FPEF), the Citrus Growers Association of SA (CGA), Hortgro Services (Hortgro), the Subtropical Growers Association (Subtrops) and the South African Table Grape Industry (SATGI) will use the upcoming conference to share their concerns and seek solutions with local and international transport and logistics providers, said Chadwick.
"Taking place at a pinnacle phase for the Southern African fresh fruit export industry, with real supply chain challenges in our midst, this conference is an ideal platform to discuss and debate the issues at hand."
From the hosts of the well-respected Cool Logistics Global event in Europe, now in its fourth year, Cool Logistics Africa 2012 runs from April 24-26 at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town.
The event includes a pre-conference site visit to two of SA's leading pack houses, a two-day conference including a networking reception hosted by Fruit SA, and an optional one-day post-conference operations and technology workshop.
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