Further R80-m will be injected into countrywide facilities, writes Ray Smuts
MORE THAN half a century... that is how long it has taken to break the fruit cooling monopoly in the ports of Cape Town and Durban but a new era has dawned as fledgling Southern African Fruit Terminals stands poised to make further inroads into these and other ports.
The company, floated six months ago with an initial cash infusion of
R20 million, intends injecting a further R80 million into cooling facilities in Port Elizabeth, Durban and Maputo and has vowed to develop anywhere it makes logistic sense. Beira, maybe? Luderitz, perhaps?
Now, with a client base that includes a number of significant players, among them Dole South Africa, Del Monte, Cape Citrus, Inter-Trading, Safe, even rival Capespan on occasion, SAFT has already captured 25% of the Western Cape fruit export market and is targeting 50% of total fruit industry market share within two years.
Two keys factors for success, maintain managing director Patrick McLoughlin and operations director Steven Janssen, are high productivity - they claim to be achieving loads of around 35 pallets per gang hour
compared with Capespan's average of around 23 at
its International Harbour Services (IHS) terminal in the port of Cape Town - and instant reliability.
By the end of last month the company had handled more than 100 00 pallets in containerised and conventional mode, for a turnover of R12 million.
0-100 in three seconds. is how McLoughlin describes SAFT's performance to date. We started with not a single client nor a single pallet and are very proud of what has been achieved by a staff complement who are not only exceptionally motivated but totally empowered.
Two years ago, McLoughlin, an engineer with the then Outspan (now Capespan) organisation before moving to the Imperial Group, set the wheels in motion to seek backing for the proposed new company.
Europe's two largest fruit terminal operators, Sea Brex BV in Rotterdam and Sea-Invest BV of Antwerp -they handle between them 80 percent of all incoming fruit - came in with a 70% stake, the remainder taken up by Freightmax, a 100% subsidiary of Imperial Holdings (RSA).
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