Innovation key to keeping SA table grapes globally competitive

As global market dynamics tighten and export standards become increasingly stringent, South Africa’s table grape industry is shifting its focus toward strategic execution across the entire value chain.

This was a central message at the commodity conference recently, where South African Table Grape Industry (SATI) CEO Mecia Petersen outlined a roadmap for navigating the sector’s next chapter.

While acknowledging South Africa’s deep legacy as a premier global supplier supporting thousands of livelihoods, Petersen stressed that long-term resilience hinges on proactive innovation and unified action.

“This is not something that any one of us can do on our own; it is definitely something that we need to do in collaboration. We have to connect our ideas to cultivate success,” she said.

Focus on strategic market expansion and fruit quality

Petersen highlighted that while Europe remains South Africa’s primary destination, industry growth requires a dual approach: safeguarding mature export markets while systematically opening new international trade corridors. However, expanding global footprints demands faster, data-driven decision-making.

“To support this shift, SATI is redirecting research priorities to accelerate innovation across the supply chain, emphasising product consistency, shelf-life quality, and rapid operational adaptation to counter rising competition and logistics disruptions,” she said.

Translating high-level strategy into field-level execution, international post-harvest experts Oscar Salgado from AgroFresh and Felipe Illanes highlighted practical, high-impact protocols used in competing global regions. Their insights focused on eliminating subtle handling errors that compromise fruit quality before it reaches port.

Key field and transport adjustments they recommended for local adoption include:

Night harvesting: Picking during cooler nocturnal hours to prevent field heat absorption.
Heat prevention: Eliminating black materials around harvested grapes that act as heat traps and cook delicate fruit.
Equipment care: Maintaining dedicated, sharp harvesting shears to make clean cuts and avoid tissue tearing.
Single-layer handling: Putting bunches in single layers to avoid compression and bruising.
Active cold logistics: Transporting fruit in pre-chilled trucks rather than loading cold fruit into ambient transport beds.

Temperature management and research

The conference also tackled common myths around temperature management and pre-cooling that lead to premature quality loss. Experts clarified that cold storage facilities and shipping reefers are designed solely to maintain temperature, not cool hot fruit down.

The sessions also addressed misconceptions around cold room environments and ventilation. Even in a top-quality cold room, internal temperatures are never perfectly uniform or constant, making pallet covers an essential tool to protect fruit against localised temperature spikes.

Additionally, ventilation involves a balance: lower airflow minimises water loss and dehydration risk, while higher airflow is necessary to properly distribute sulfur dioxide (SO₂) treatments throughout the fruit.

Highlighting the integration of academic research into commercial operations, a cohort of Stellenbosch University students and a lecturer, Alemayehu Tsige, presented on post-harvest management, packaging, and product quality.

Representing his group, Thalente Mpanza showcased their study, which highlighted that moving toward cultivar-specific packaging could significantly enhance cooling performance and final product quality.

“While commercial implementation will require further cross-season validation, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling offers the industry a powerful tool to accelerate packaging development without costly trial-and-error field testing,” Mpanza said.