Biggest blueberry season threatened by Covid-19
According to the South African berry producers association a crop of 17,000 t is expected this year, mostly set for export. Faced with airfreight rates much higher than before Covid-19 and a lack of international flights from Cape Town, Western Cape, where about 60% of the country’s blueberries - 8'000 t in 2018, which earned USD 60 million - are grown, export companies start to collaborate in an effort to manage costs.
Chirene Jelbert, CEO of Cfruit: "We are finding that international flights are 50% to 70% more expensive than they were. So we have to truck the fruit to Johannesburg at an additional cost. We have decided to collaborate with other exporters as far as possible to try and load containers, doing less on airfreight", conceding that "there will definitely be fruit that is not suitable to export in a sea container because it is maybe already too soft". (ah)