Frozen fruit market gathers momentum in South Africa

SOUTH AFRICA- South Africa’s frozen fruit sector is gaining strength, led by innovators like Chirene Jelbert, who witnessed the country’s blueberry industry blossom firsthand.

Jelbert, founder of C Fruit, has seen the transformation from food waste concerns to a thriving export business.

“The waste part is always the stepchild,” says Jelbert, a horticulturalist who has worn many hats, from quality assurance manager to commercial manager, in fruit exporting.

“Sometimes I’ve been a little bit early for the industry. My career has sort of always been driven into thinking out of the box: how can I find comfort, or how can I find a solution in discomfort?”

Building New Markets for Fruit Waste

In 2017, Jelbert founded C Fruit with a clear goal: to meet different customers’ needs and prevent unnecessary waste.

Instead of letting surplus fruit end up in the same boxes or discarded when prices dropped, she worked on packing fruit more carefully and finding buyers willing to pay for what others were ignoring.

Jelbert explained that if clients could avoid waste, they were happy to pay a better price, which in turn allowed growers to earn more.

She pointed out that the needs of different companies vary. For instance, a smoothie producer would want a different size of fruit compared to a bakery that needs smaller blueberries for muffins.

During C Fruit’s first year, a grower was about to throw away a full pallet of excellent raspberries because he could not find a market. Jelbert insisted that there had to be buyers for it, the sales process simply had not been developed yet.

She said that while it took her a year to sell such a pallet back then, today it would only take a few days.

Today, the company’s frozen fruit exports are larger than their fresh exports. Jelbert said prices for frozen fruit have been rising steadily, with more consumers opting for frozen products.

Goldenberries Lead Demand

One of the company’s biggest challenges is meeting the demand for frozen physalis, also known as goldenberries. “Our most popular product on frozen, which we can never get hold of enough or grow enough, is physalis or goldenberries,” she says.

She added that the price for fresh physalis has not risen much, making it harder for farmers to remain profitable. As a result, fewer growers are planting goldenberries, even as customer demand stays high.

Jelbert said that solving this problem requires careful thinking about harvesting, transport, packaging, and pricing to make physalis worth growing again.

Following a period of low availability, South African retailers have started offering better prices for physalis. “I think we’re making a turn again on physalis, and it should be more stable again in the next two, three years,” Jelbert adds.

Planning for the future

Always keeping future markets in mind, Jelbert has also been working with yellow and red kiwi growers. She mentioned that farmers who watched the growth cycle of blueberries want to prepare earlier this time to avoid market oversupply.

Jelbert stressed that industries must work together to build steady demand for new fruit varieties before oversupply pressures prices downwards.

Product development in citrus and frozen white-fleshed peaches is also underway at C Fruit. Jelbert said that although they often sell out every year, this ongoing demand helps justify the cost of investing in agroprocessing equipment.

C Fruit has also grown through a partnership with Abackus Trust, led by Simon and Michael Back, known as pioneers of blueberry farming in South Africa. “This has allowed me to refocus on my passion for unique produce strategies to add value to different supply chains,” Jelbert shares.

Jelbert continues to stay active at fresh fruit expos and regularly connects with industry players to plan for future market needs.

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