The South African Sharonfruit industry has been founded largely on the initiative of Mor International, the Israeli group responsible for marketing much of Israel’s astringent persimmon crop, with the purpose of extending its supply period with southern-hemisphere product.
The entire industry’s production is from the popular astringent persimmon variety Diospyros Triumph*, imported from Israel, and the first trees were planted in South Africa as recently as 1998. Triumph is also the variety that produces the sweetest persimmons.
Although this industry is still in its infancy, it has received substantial investment from its Israeli partners, both in big farming operations and the large, state-of-the-art ARISA treatment, packing and storage facility at Buffeljag in the Southern Cape. This facility was opened in 2003 and has the capacity to package and treat 12,000t of fruit annually. The industry’s infrastructure has also been partly funded by the South African Industrial Development Corporation and grower investment, and this has all pushed the industry to a current worth of more than 100 million Rand (£7m).
“We are well satisfied with the development of the Sharonfruit industry in South Africa,” says Eran Rotem, managing director of Sharonfruit of South Africa and chief representative of the Mor Group in South Africa. “Initially we had some problems, but we have overcome these and now produce fruit that has the same quality as fruit produced in Israel, except here it grows even bigger.”
The Sharonfruit Growers’ Group (SGG) controls production and distribution of plant material while Sharon International is responsible for marketing. The SGG, established in 1997, consists of a select group of growers spread across a wide geographic area of about 700km, from Piketberg in the Western Cape to Cookhouse in the Eastern Cape, and at present, all fruit is delivered to the ARISA packhouse This allows for centralised control of the packaging and treatment process, as well as the marketing strategy.
“We work closely with our Israeli partners,” says Dr Jerome Sedgwick, chairman of the SGG. “The Mor Group markets Israeli fruit during its production season and then markets our fruit during the counter-season. The group chose South Africa as the base for its southern-hemisphere production, and thus South Africa is the only producer of Sharonfruit in the southern hemisphere.”
The largest market for the product is the European Union, with the bulk of fruit destined for supermarket programmes in northern Europe and the UK. Demand for the fruit in the marketplace is larger than available supply. “The fruit has been well received by our supermarket clients,” says Matthew Foster, commercial director at Utopia UK.
At the Buffeljag packhouse, fruit is packed both in Sharon™ Fruit branded cartons, as well as in cartons with the brand names of leading UK and European supermarkets. Some shipments are also destined for the Far East, the Middle East, Canada, Israel and Taiwan. “We are proud to say that this fruit is guaranteed pesticide free, with a zero residue level. This has been proven by repeated testing and we achieve this by strict adherence to the chemical usage protocols,” says Sedgwick.
“Many north and west European markets are familiar with Sharonfruit, but see it largely as a winter crop,” he says. “We need to convince supermarkets to put more of the fruit on their shelves during summer.” Total summer sales of Sharonfruit are roughly an eighth of winter sales, in part due to the relatively high price of the product, which is also on sale in the UK during a time when summer fruit is plentiful.
The Triumph variety has a longer shelf life - four to five weeks from packing to consumption -and better flavour than non-astringent varieties. “The fruit is sweet and crunchy like an apple and can be eaten on its own or sliced into a fruit salad,” says Richard Hill, owner of the Horticulture Afrique nursery, responsible for propagating the Sharonfruit plant material, as well as a director on the board of Sharonfruit of South Africa.
Successful production of the fruit is possible in areas that do not have too much wind or low humidity and where the temperature does not exceed 32°C too often. The wide geographical spread of growers spreads the period of production and supply and extends the season.
The aim of the first phase of the industry is to plant approximately 1,000ha of Sharonfruit in South Africa by 2010. The industry is working to gain market access into the US and Japan and hopes to achieve this during the next two years. If this is successful, the plan is to extend development with a second phase of expansion of a further 1,000ha. At present, 17 per cent of income is re-invested in research and development on behalf of the industry, by a number of research and development facilities throughout South Africa. The industry also plans to expand its packing, treatment and storage infrastructure as more orchards start yielding fruit.
The fruit requires a post-harvest process to remove the astringency from the fruit. “Once the fruit is packed and ready for shipment, we treat it with carbon dioxide in specialised treatment chambers,” says Cornie Swart, technical manager of Sharonfruit of South Africa and manager of Mor Group’s farming operations. When the fruit is harvested, it is astringent and virtually inedible due to high tannin levels, but this process matures it and converts it into a marketable fruit.
Success has been achieved after a challenging start. It was initially difficult to convince growers to invest in planting Sharonfruit and it was something of a leap of faith for growers to consider growing a completely new product. Importing the plant material also proved problematic.
Once the orchards are established, production can also throw up problems. “Sharonfruit is not easy to grow,” says Sedgwick. “It is horticulturally a great challenge in many aspects: the plants need to be grafted and this is technically demanding, often yielding a very poor ‘take’.
“The plants are seedless and so fruit set is often problematic. They should also not be pollinated and accidental pollination, which does happen, produces highly seeded fruit not suitable for marketing. The plants are also prone to alternate bearing, which means that they do not produce a full crop every year.”
Decent returns received from Sharonfruit sales have motivated the development of the industry - growers of more traditional deciduous fruits as well as citrus are taking a keen interest in the alternative. “The current interest in our industry makes it all the more important that the growth and development of Sharonfruit production is controlled, to continue to supply a world-class product that is pesticide free and of a high and uniform quality to our customers worldwide,” Sedgwick says.
*The genus name, Diospyros, means “food for the gods.”
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