A fruitful career ends for ‘Mr Reefer’

He admires Clint Eastwood’s old fashioned cowboy values of honesty and loyalty and considers Sharon Stone the ‘sexiest woman alive’ – even so, Jan Kruger played his own centre stage role as the face of ocean freight changed dramatically and an unshackled fruit industry began to blossom. Safmarine’s ‘Mr Reefer’ since 1995 but involved for 37 years in the line’s containerisation activities, Kruger officially retired at the end of April and will be sorely missed by the container and fruit sectors, such was his passion for both. Like most lads of a tender age, Kruger – who was born in Calitzdorp and raised in Queenstown – dreamt of a ‘hot’ career, driving a steam locomotive or becoming a detective. That was all forgotten when, armed with B Com and MBA degrees from Stellenbosch University, he joined Safmarine in 1972 as a traffic controller, proudly recalling being one of the first to receive an electronic calculator…without a memory. Two years later saw the formation of, and Kruger’s inclusion in, Safmarine’s container team, its purpose to transform the company from conventional to containerised cargo. In 1976 he was posted to London to establish a container management function for Europe, in preparation for Safics (Safmarine Interim Container Service), the forerunner to a full-blown Saecs service which continues successfully to this day. Kruger later took over the container department in Cape Town then moved to the Europe trade, first as ops manager and then pricing manager. He was given the added responsibility of understudying Chick Breetzke, the then Conference chairman and also Safmarine’s ‘Mr Reefer’, whom he succeeded as reefer executive in 1995. Perhaps the most interesting time in Kruger’s eventful career was the deregulation of the fruit industry in 1999, which left local producers free to export their fruit directly to global markets. He says most of the emerging exporters approached Safmarine to handle their business and many remain with the line to this day. “Safmarine’s fruit customer base is the envy of many shipping lines,” he says with a certain measure of pride. “My life has been immensely enriched by the people I’ve met in the local fruit business. These people have been, and are, the backbone of Safmarine’s reefer trade, which is why it remains important to continue supporting this industry as we expand our business into other new sectors.” Another career highlight has been the swing from conventional shipping to reefer containers and the benefits this has brought the South African fruit export industry. The inroads of containerisation over conventional shipping have been “remarkable”, says Kruger, estimating a seven-fold increase in the two decades up to 2009. (The mix is now approximately 75:25 in favour of containers). A keen hunter and marathon runner after quitting smoking, Kruger and schoolteacher wife Nell are contemplating eventual retirement to the Great Karoo hamlet of Prince Albert where they have bought an old Victorian house with watering rights – what they call a leibeurt in Afrikaans – for the large plot. (The couple has three grown children). “Who knows? Perhaps I will buy a cart and donkey so we can take our fresh vegetables to the weekly market,” he jokes.