Africa’s biggest supermarket, The Shoprite Group, has purchased over 20 million cartons of apples and pears for its Shoprite and Checkers customers in 2689 outlets in 15 African countries and the Indian Ocean Islands from Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing, the land’s biggest fruit exporter into over 104 countries,.

In 2010, Tru-Cape marked the delivery of its 10 millionth carton of fruit to The Shoprite Group’s  fruit and vegetable procurement arm Freshmark and, at the time, both parties hoped for mutual continued success. Today, not even seven years later, growth in the fruit and vegetable category as well as Tru-Cape’s increased ability to source apples and pears from different climatic regions along with Tru-Cape’s Gauteng-based storage and distribution facility, means more fruit is reaching South Africans than before.

Roelf Pienaar, Tru-Cape’s managing director said that Tru-Cape has worked hard to improve its efficiencies which is evidenced as having being selected as a Supplier of the Year to the Shoprite Group in 2015. Tru-Cape growers are among the most innovative and two have been recognised as Farmer of the Year and Emerging Farmer of the Year. “As a wholly grower owned business, our integrated approach to owning and managing the value chain has proven beneficial for our growers and suppliers alike. Despite our leading position we continue to search for ways to do what we do better with on-going attention to our quality, people and processes.

Freshmark’s managing director Dr Johan van Deventer says that Tru-Cape’s focus on people, processes, quality and continuity has resulted in quality produce delivered on demand which has meant that Shoprite Group customers have uninterrupted supply of quality fruit every day of the year.

“As we mark the purchase of the 20 millionth carton of fruit from Tru-Cape for our customers in Africa, South Africa and elsewhere in the world we look ahead to a continued relationship that will grow even further to benefit Shoprite and Checkers customers, the growers and Tru-Cape going forward,” Van Deventer says.

Pienaar ends by saying that Tru-Cape’s growers in the Elgin/Grabouw/Villiersdorp and Vyeboom valleys, the greater Ceres region and in The Langkloof, near the Garden Route, along with its grower owned processing, packing and storage facilities Two-a-Day and Ceres Fruit Growers, means that based on trees in the ground at the moment the company will have to be able to manage more than 50% more fruit in the next five years. “We look forward to a further strengthening of our ties with Freshmark to deliver these to the African continent and beyond.”