South African fruit grower, packer and exporter Ceres Fruit Growers (CFG) has invested R8m (£663,000) in new infrastructure.

Already CFG has one of the biggest fruit packing operations in the world, and claims to have the largest cold storage facility in the southern hemisphere. The investment intends to give it the scope to expand further.

The marketing arm of CFG - Tru-Cape, Kromco and Two-A-Day market its apples into UK supermarket customers Waitrose, Tesco, Safeway and Sainsbury’s.

CFG is HACCP accredited, as well as having attained BRC, EurepGAP and Nature’s Choice status.

Managing director Johan von Wielligh said last week: “The new technology we have installed has extended one of the packhouse's sorting and packing arms up to six tentacles that allow the same tip-out of fruit to be sorted and packed for up to six different specifications simultaneously.

“The result is a more streamlined operation that further reduces the possibility of human error. Fruit sorting and packing is extremely labour intensive and the cost of errors very high,“ he said. “The new system allows us to channel increased volumes without increasing labour.”

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