Tru-Cape, South Africa’s largest distributor of apples and pears to the local market and a significant role-player in the country’s R6bn fruit industry, has opened a new 4,000m2 storage and distribution centre at the City Deep Market near Johannesburg.
The move increases Tru-Cape’s capacity at the market five times over and will also provide office space for the marketing team.
According to managing director Roelf Pienaar, the previous facility served Tru-Cape and its grower owners from Ceres Fruit Growers and Two-a-Day for 30 years.
“This new building will help us achieve our goals for the next decade and more,” he says.
In addition to investing in infrastructure, Tru-Cape has reduced operating costs through joint-venture partnerships with key customers, further closing the gap between the grower and the consumer.
“Our focus has always been on establishing a good, strong local market brand and this continues with renewed energy,” Pienaar continues.
He notes that, based on trees already in the ground, the company will have 18m cartons of fruit to place in international and local markets within the next five years.
“We will now have capacity for 1,152 palettes of fruit as well as administration and meetings spaces, Pienaar outlines. 'This will allow us to better and more frequently replenish our local customers but also to plan to further expand our cross-border business into Africa, which has already increased by 36 per cent this year compared with the same period last year.
“The building will have three loading bays, five cold-storage rooms to each accommodate 240 palettes as well as a holding and inspection facility. This will allow for quality and phytosanitary inspection in our own facility and for cold sterilisation where necessary,” he continues.
Tru-Cape’s closer-to-market strategy sees the company working more directly with key customers, focusing specifically on Africa and the Middle East.
“This will ultimately lead to greater management of the value chain and increased returns to our grower shareholders,” he says.
At the helm since January 2014, Pienaar explains that 2014 was a year of focusing on people, processes and technology.
“We have increased our operational efficiencies so that we are extracting the maximum value and this will maintain our leadership position and continue to make us relevant for this decade and next,” he says.
Tru-Cape is also eyeing new customers and plans to grow its 60 per cent share of informal market business by these advances.
“We are also growing our basket by adding other fruit and veg lines, adding greater value to our growers by managing more of their total crop and not only apples, pears and cherries.
“Increased cross-border business with our neighbours in Mozambique, Lesotho, Tanzania, Botswana and other countries is the most significant growth trend with road freight leaving from Johannesburg into sub-Saharan Africa ever more frequently,' Pienaar adds. 'We have created spaces in our new building especially dedicated to offering these customers a working and rest space, including shower facilities while purchases are being loaded.'
