Just peachy

Did you know?

White-flesh nectarines are sweeter than their yellow-flesh counterparts. They also have a lower acid content.

Stems

Founded in 2011, Stems works with and empowers a close-knit group of 25 growers to ensure that together, they can provide unique stone fruit varieties to premium international retailers such as Spinneys.

Much of the company’s investment is placed in a dynamic evaluation programme, which sees them trialling more than 500 new stone fruit varieties, (that includes white- and yellow-flesh nectarines, peaches, flat peaches, plums, apricots and cherries) in four strategically-placed evaluation orchards in production areas across the Western Cape. These varieties hail mainly from 13 breeders in the US, Spain, France and South Africa.

“Together with our growers and our full time evaluator, we regularly travel abroad to identify potential winners”, says managing director Annelie Haumann.“

After the importation of the material to South Africa, it needs to go through a quarantine process before it is released to be planted out in our respective experimental orchards. These varieties are then closely monitored; everything from fruit yield and fruit size to eating quality, pest and disease resistance and water usage is taken into consideration, to select only the best varieties for commercial plantings. This process can take anywhere from 5-7 years.

“Innovation is key at Stems – and we’re proud to say that through this evaluation programme, we’ve managed to secure some of the best stone fruit varieties out there,” she adds.

Stems latest champion is Boreal – an early-season, white-flesh nectarine. Raymond Koopstad, who farms in partnership with a 4th-generation Stems grower, Peter Wolfaardt has the first commercial planting rights in South Africa for this cultivar.

“We’ll be the first South African company exporting this variety,“ says Annelie – “and hopefully you’ll see it soon on the Spinneys shelves.”

Raymond and Peter’s farms are in Ceres – a fertile and strikingly beautiful mountainous valley that’s ideal for the production of stone fruit because of its hot summers, extremely cold winters and good water resources. The region almost guarantees good fruit size, sugars and colouration. They both can’t speak highly enough about the benefits of working in close collaboration with Stems.

“As growers, we really appreciate the opportunities our partnership with Stems allows,” says Raymond. “There was nothing like this in the past.”

Peter adds: “New stone varieties are like race horses – they need to be bred properly and will perform at their best if they are well ‘groomed’ and ‘stabled’ with the right owner in the right area. Through the Stems evaluation programme, we get clarity in regard to how we need to manage a new variety; what sort of environmental and growing conditions will be required by the variety to ensure optimum results as well as a long shelf life – it is important that the variety will have the ability to travel by sea, as this is a huge priority for us as we are far from our markets. We are striving as a group toward putting better quality products on the shelves of our clients in comparison to what we’ve offered previously. We know our premium clients like Spinneys are not interested in the past; they want our innovative future offer!”

For more information, please visit stemsfruit.co.za

Delecta

Delecta was formed in 1997 just after the de-regulation of the South African fruit industry. The leading producer-owned company works with another 30 independent growers from across the country to export table grapes, apples, pears, citrus and stone fruit to leading retailers and wholesalers around the world.

“We’ve worked with Spinneys for the last 10 years, supplying them with peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots,” says managing director Awie de Jager. “We are committed to delivering varieties with the best eating quality and good shelf life continually throughout the season, from our early to late production areas,” he adds.

As a key player in the stone fruit industry, innovation and varietal development is at the forefront for Delecta and any grower with whom they work subscribes to the same ethos. “Finding the right partners, in the right areas, is important to us, and everyone thinks toward the future.”

One of Delecta’s six major shareholders is Graaff Fruit – a family business in the Ceres region that produces Bradford, PSB, Zaiger and Sunworld varieties across three established farms.

Danie Viljoen heads up the company’s original farm Lushof, which is located near Prince Alfred Hamlet, in the Warm Bokkeveld area. The medium chill climate with high summer temperatures is great for growing peaches and nectarines, ensuring optimum sugar levels.

Sustainability, mentoring and the integration of technology across all processes are all important to Danie. The self-confessed ‘disruptor’ leads a switched-on team who look after 175 hectares of high-yielding stone fruit trees and successful trial blocks.

“Technology works throughout the flow of our day,” says Danie. “We have tablets being used in the fields, where all sorts of data is recorded, communicated and linked together. This helps with overall traceability. Everyone needs to be connected to the bigger picture of what we’re doing.”

About a 30-minute drive from Lushof is Romansrivier – another of Graaff’s farms, which is located in Wolseley in the Breede River Valley. The climate is mild, but is also very windy – which means the majority of stone fruit trees are planted under nets.

Pierre de Wet, who is at the helm of this operation, explains that nets, despite being costly, are hugely beneficial. The microclimate created underneath them means the fruit has a cosmetically cleaner appearance, grows faster and more abundantly and there is a saving on water usage, thus lowering the farm’s carbon footprint.

A fact that was raised by all the growers we met is that it all comes down to timing when you’re dealing with stone fruit. And given the delicate nature of the produce,
one needs to tread carefully.

Pierre – who has been farming for 18 years – sums it up well: “There’s no such thing as tomorrow being another day in this industry. Whether the trees need to be pruned, or the flowers need thinning or the fruit needs harvesting, it all has to be done immediately. It keeps you on your toes. But when you look at the results of what you’ve done – that’s something of which to be proud.”

For more information, please visit delecta.co.za

Fruits unlimited

Fruits Unlimited was established in 2001. The company owns a number of Unlimited Group farms, but also works with more than 70 stone fruit growers – to ensure it can leverage unique microclimates to produce a bounty of top-quality produce.

In terms of the latter, Fruits Unlimited
has developed many game-changing varieties, giving its growers exclusive
and exciting opportunities to work with next-generation cultivars.

“We identify great new cultivars from a range of international breeding programmes, and plant the best ones,” says product manager Jannie Marais, who is also the South African representative of the Custom Plum Company. “We’ve bought the sole rights to growing California-based Zaiger Genetics’ interspecifics, and we're working with amazing, naturally cross-bred new varietals – such as apricots, nectarines and cherries with different types of plums.”

A company that has invested heavily in Fruits Unlimited’s vision is Boschendal – a post-card perfect Cape Dutch farm that dates back to 1685. Up until 2014, it’s always been known for its vineyards, but now, thanks to a massive project pioneered by Jacques du Toit – managing director of Agriculture and Estate, 152 hectares of high-density yielding interspecific plum trees have been added to the mix.

“We’ve planted 600,000 new trees in the last three years,” says Jacques. “When we started we only had around 10 hectares of plums. It’s exciting to be part of such growth and work with cutting-edge varieties. Our location is excellent, too. We’re blessed with great water sources and good soils, and we’re backed by people who believe in what we do.”

We’re particularly impressed by Boschendal and Fruits Unlimited‘s exclusive cherry plums (also known as Sweet Pixies), which, among others, are supplied to Spinneys. A cross between a cherry and a plum, they’re small, so ideal for snacking, and a sweet treat.

“We were willing to take a risk with the cherry plums and it really paid off,” says Jacques. “In fact, of all 16 plum varietals we’ve trialled on Boschendal, only two have not showed potential.”

The farm’s mixture of both early and late fruit varieties means that their picking and packing season has increased dramatically. And this crop diversity has a direct impact on the stability of employment at Boschendal. The business has done a lot to provide permanent roles within the local community.

Investment in people is high on Jacques’ list. He’s even received two international innovation nominations for a double-pole trellis system, which he designed and built with the purpose of being able to employ more women. The plum trees are kept shorter than usual, so that pruning and picking is easier.

“There’s a lot of climbing up and down ladders in the fruit-farming industry – we didn’t want our female staff risking their safety,” he says. “You can have the best soil, equipment and ideas, but if you don’t invest in your staff then you’re nothing.”

For more information, please visit fruits.co.za