A message from our CEO, Charl du Bois: Reflecting on a Year of Success and Anticipation for the Future
Celebrating Our Harvest and Teamwork
I spent the last week visiting table grape farms in Namibia and the Northern Cape, which are currently busy with the harvest. Capespan Farms in South Africa, and in Namibia in partnership with the Namibia Grape Company, produce table grapes on a total of 830 productive hectares. I was privileged enough to visit all these farms, meet the teams and walk through most of the vineyards. I am incredibly pleased to report that the fruit condition is fantastic, with incredible berry size, colour development and taste.? It has been a whirlwind tour of early mornings and late nights, and there are close to 3 000 people at work on these farms. Some start at 03:00, getting pack sheds and teams ready, and others work until after 22:00 to get the day’s job done, often for 7 days a week at the peak of the harvest. Having again experienced the energy of a fruit crop being harvested gave me a chance to reflect on our business.
It was great to witness in our people the contentment of having prepared a great crop, the joy of packing it, and the pride of knowing that we will have a fantastic product on shelves, all the while hoping that the weather continues to play along. Contentment, Joy, Pride and Hope are powerful emotions.? Many of my colleagues spoke about how lucky we are that the weather has held, allowing them to prepare this phenomenal crop. But luck is a fickle friend and thankfully only part of the story. As golfing legend Gary Player responded when commentators claimed he was lucky with a difficult shot out of a bunker: “The more I practice, the luckier I get!”
The Power of Precision and Preparation
Fruit production, particularly on a large scale, is incredibly demanding in terms of performing certain precision production actions at exactly the right time, every time. Mother Nature leaves no margin for error, if you get anything wrong, she will punish you. When I pushed some of our production managers about why they thought they were so exceptionally lucky this year, the golden thread was always that they went out of their way to do the right things, at the right time, every time, as they always do. I know the same is true of the entire Capespan business, from primary production to commercial and supporting functions such as sales, logistics and finance that all look after fruit entrusted to us by growers.
Navigating Challenges Beyond Our Control
As we have seen in previous years, even if you do everything right, sometimes drought, floods or storms with frost or hail mean the outcome is not what anyone wanted. But doing the right thing, on time, every time has now gotten us to the point where we have exported just over 1000 40” containers of the best quality and condition table grapes I have seen in my career. To quantify this, if the trucks delivering these containers were parked one behind the other, they would form a queue 15 km long!
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Whatever the future holds for Capespan and our partners, we should remember Contentment, Joy, Pride and Hope in what we do when the outcome is what we hope for. Equally, we need to bear in mind that, due to forces we cannot control, it may at times also not be so.
A Message of Gratitude and Hope
I would like to thank all our employees, grower partners, customers and suppliers for their incredible contribution over the past 12 months. To those involved in the fine madness of the 2024/2025 table grapes, we wish you a successful harvest! And to those not involved in this, a well-deserved break and time with family and friends during the festive season, until your successful season comes during the course of 2025.
We deliver.
Charl du Bois - Capespan CEO
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