BETKO NEWS

BETKO FRESH PRODUCE OFFERS THE HIGHEST QUALITY FRUIT

Confident start for Betko

08 March 2009

South African exporter, Betko Fresh Produce, is fast becoming one of the leading players in the South African pome export industry. The company says it will continue to grow its business in 2009.

 Betko Fresh Produce is expecting a good pear market in 2009, but says the season for apples will be much tougher than last year. Betko shipped its early Bon Chretion pears in January and will complete shipments in November this year when the last fruit will be sold in West Africa.

“Africa is extremely important in our total marketing strategy,” says Roux Groenewald, Marketing Director of the Villiersdorp-based operation. “We have succeeded in building a strong market for our fruit in West Africa and this has helped us to virtually become an 11-month-of-the-year exporter.”

He says the outlook for pears in Europe is good mainly because the European stocks are lower than this time last year. “We are confident that we will retain values at the same level as last year.”

He expects the bigger left over stocks in Europe to have the opposite effect in the case of apples. “South Africa again has a good crop and we expect excellent quality following a cold winter. This will be extremely important in a more competitive marketing scenario.”

Betko has achieved remarkable international success given the fact that it only started exporting at the end of deregulation. Innovative branding and packing concepts are some of the reasons for its success.

The Betko brand is already well known in both the international and local markets, and the company’s second barnd, Goal Fruit, is proving a winner as South Africa is preparing to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Betko is a family owned operation. The founder, Japie Groenewald and his family, expanded the business rapidly and today have a modern cold storage and packing facility located on the outskirts of Villiersdorp in the Vyeboom region of South Africa’s Western Cape Province. Betko annually packs 48 000 tons of apples and pears. Of this volume 80% represents apples. The pack house and cold storage complex has 72 Controlled Atmosphere rooms with a total capacity of 98 000 bulk bins.

Betko’s range of products include six popular pear varieties, namely William’s BC, Packham’s Triumph, Rosemarie, Abate Fetel, Golden Russet Bosc and Forelle. The apple range includes Panorama Golden, Royal Gala, Golden Delicious, Fuji, Topred, Granny Smith, Braeburn, Pink Lady/Cripps Pink and Sundowner/Cripps Red.

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