00:06In January, 1.6 million cartons of stone fruit were shipped from South Africa to the Middle East.
00:13With the Strait of Hormuz closed, the ships are now stuck at sea.
00:18Fruit obviously has a time frame and that's the big problem that we now face.
00:23The quality of the fruit when it left the pack house, it's absolutely 100% perfect.
00:27It's basically planned for that time frame and then you also have to look at the shelf life at destination.
00:35Freight companies are trying to reroute the ships to other countries,
00:39but fresh produce is strictly regulated and adhering to compliance could cause further delays.
00:45This means additional costs and lower returns.
00:48The problem is also the fighter sanitary to make sure we have the correct fighter sanitary,
00:53correct certification to get it into these other countries.
00:56And, of course, it's an additional cost.
00:58But it's doubling the freight charges.
01:00The freight charges would say $4,000 a container.
01:04Those charges are now going to be $8,000 a container.
01:08So the problem is what happens and who has to absorb that cost,
01:12which is going to be the exporter or the shipper.
01:15In other words, it landed up in South Africa's problem because of this is
01:19where we have to move the fruit. We can't let it go rotten on the sea.
01:23South Africa is the largest stone fruit producer in Africa and the second largest citrus exporter globally.
01:30Massive investments go into the entire value chain from planting to harvesting to shipping.
01:36We always talk about maintaining the cold chain, literally from the farmer through to cold chain containers.
01:45And those containers on both trucks, container trucks and on ships need to maintain a certain level of temperature, humidity.
01:55Otherwise, you will have spoilage because it takes quite some time for that fruit to reach its destination.
02:01Certainly for the fruit exporters, it is not a good situation at the moment.
02:07The Middle East itself has become a very large growing market for us,
02:11also largely in recent years due to the tariff issues with the US.
02:16So we have about 90% of our fruit shipments bound for the Middle East that have been disrupted.
02:25Rising oil prices and possible shortages are also concerning farmers.
02:30Fuel is a major input cost and with diesel prices set to go up on the 1st of April,
02:36some farmers are stockpiling, which has led some fuel stations to ration diesel.
02:42Although the government says the country's fuel supply is stable in the immediate term.
Comments