After jumping ship some six months ago, Riaan van Wyk has become the real comeback kid of the South African fruit industry now that he is back at the helm of Colorsfruit's international marketing.
In a major reshuffle at the company, which resulted in resignations from 12 senior commercial managers, it has also been announced that South African firm Farmsecure Group is poised to make a major investment in Colorsfruit.
In confirming the resignations, Colors Group CEO Ian Carstens, one of the founder members and a major shareholder, said while the resignation of key members of staff was regrettable, he respected their wishes to pursue interests outside the company.
'Colorsfruit will use the opportunity to restructure and strengthen the Group,' Mr Carstens told Fruitnet.com.
'For example, earlier this week we successfully negotiated a significant investment from the Farmsecure Group, which will acquire shareholding in the Colors Group subject to the requisite regulatory approval being given.
'This investment heralds a positive new direction for Colorsfruit, as Farmsecure is considered a leader in the agricultural sector. The company, which has a primary focus on empowering farmers through the provision of precision farming skills, agricultural knowledge and technologies, will definitely strengthen the Colors operation going forward.'
Farmsecure CEO and founder Jerome Yazbek said he was excited about the partnership with the Colors Group, a company which for the past 13 years has become, by sales, the largest privately owned agri-business in the fruit sector and South Africa's second-largest exporter of fruit.
'Our investment in Colors will take us one step closer to fulfilling our global vision of sustainable, profitable farming in the fruit industry,' Mr Yazbek said.
Mr Carstens said the restructuring of Colorsfruit should be seen as a natural development of a dynamic company operating in the ever-changing fruit industry.
'We want to assure our producers and our customers that it is very much ‘business as usual' at Colorsfruit and that the current senior team will use the changes as an opportunity to reinforce our corporate promise of ‘new thinking, new solutions,' he asserted.
For Riaan van Wyk, a founder and major shareholder of the Colors Group, it has been a sweet homecoming. When he left the company in February he admitted that it was not on the best of terms.
'I feel incredibly lucky to have a new opportunity to lead this company's international marketing. We are going back to the Colorsfruit that everyone knew and respected and this means that our focus will be entirely fruit industry,' Mr van Wyk said.
He added that while it is difficult for the company to lose a number of experienced and respected team members, there is enough experience left to lead a young team forward into the future.
Mr Van Wyk has been one of the distinguished South African fruit industry leaders of the post regulation period. He was instrumental in the formation of Fruit South Africa in an effort to retain the image of South African fruit on the world markets, and served as director of the Fresh Produce Exporters' Forum during its turbulent early years. He also made a major contribution to setting a process in place to provide better training for young people entering the fruit export industry.
Colorsfruit was founded soon after deregulation and set new trends in branding with its multi-colour image. The company grew to market around 15m cartons during the past 10 years, with a portfolio of products including table grapes, stonefruit, citrus, topfruit and sub-tropical fruit such as pawpaws (papaya) and lychees.
