Ray Smuts THREE CRUCIAL issues will determine whether South Africa retains its position as the southern hemisphere’s principal fruit exporter Ð quality, quality, quality. That’s the view of the Ronnie Kingwill, MD of Fresh Produce Terminals, South Africa’s largest quayside handler of fruit. Other challenges lie in focusing on new niche markets and being able to respond proactively to a host of international standards such as tracking and tracing of product as specified in the EAN-UCC Standards. Just back from a brief visit to terminals in Adelaide Australia and Tanjung Pelepas (PTP), the world’s fastest growing transhipment port in Malaysia, Kingwill shares the satisfaction of growers and exporters at inroads made during the past year into new niche markets, the US and Japan in particular. In no doubt that further forays will continue into niche markets like Korea and Taiwan in the year ahead, he stresses this is not to be considered a walk in the orchard. “It’s specialised work and extremely high risk because of the relationships that exist with the various countries. Any deviation such as one rejected pallet could result in the entire shipment being condemned.” For this reason and realising full well that the stakes are high, FPT is out in the year ahead to support specialised niche markets, wherever they may occur, through very specific planning programmes, shipping and protocol requirements. “It all boils down to collective thinking rather than everybody doing their own thing because we are talking about small and specialised markets,” he added.
