Two-a-day Group

COMPANY PROFILE

2015

Two-a-Day Group

+27 21 859 7500 | www.tad.co.za

company profile

A fruitful history Editorial: Harriet Pattison

With a long and successful history, Two-a-Day Group now stands as one of the leading fruit growing, packing and marketing companies in Africa, with more than 50 farms from which it exports fruit both to local and international markets. In the last decade, Two-a-Day has implemented and embraced new and innovative technology across its operations - key to its ongoing and shining success.

With the roots of the company going all the way back to the early 1920’s when three growers decided to come together to combine their packing and cold storage of fruit produce, it wasn’t until June 1948 when Elgin Fruit Packers Ltd was founded as an agricultural co-operative in the Elgin district in the Western Cape. With a total of 18 shareholders, it remains to this day the longest and oldest established local co-operative.

During the 1950’s, the Group maintained a crop increase of 150% with an estimated 550,000 cartons of fruit packed. As this growth continued, it was reported that by 1976, the total number of cartons packed had reached 1.5 million – two thirds of these were exported, resulting in an 8% share in the South African apple export crop.

In its current market, Two-a-Day is exporting, every year, up to 5,200,000 cartons of apples and pears whilst simultaneously

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supplying local markets with an estimated 2,000,000 cartons.

Managing Director, Attie van Zyl, explains that the Group has always tended to focus on the traditional fruit export of apples and pears.

“The first apple orchards were planted in this area at the turn of the century. By the early 20’s there was a handful of growers who had planted apples and they realised that infrastructure costs were expensive. Instead of each going and building a pack house and cold store, they realised it would be beneficial to do it together.

“70% of our product is exported and we are selling in 65 countries,” he explains.

A METICULOUS PROCESS Before the fruit is sent off to the international markets and African clients, it goes through rigorous checks to ensure the quality is first class, ensuring the company’s

Two-a-Day Group

international reputation.

Over a 24-hour period, Two-a-Day’s packing facilities can reach a capacity of up to 1040 tonnes. A meticulous and strategic process, the fruit is first sorted to ensure that there are no defects, those without defects are then left to be sized. This process involved the fruit being weighed and colour sorted before it is distributed onto packer tables. Fruit of similar size and colour is then grouped together via a computer programmed sizer.

Once all individual fruit has been weighed, it is then labelled using a Sinclair Labeller. Packing of the fruit is either done by hand, by semi-automatic tray fillers or by bagging machines.

The boxes of fruit are then passed through an information system where each carton is weighed before a thermal printed label is applied – this includes all the relevant information; date of packing, variety and either

the producer number or client/market specification.

The company’s packing facility maintains a fully trained and experienced staff base, high hygiene standards and ensures all equipment is both user and fruit friendly – the facilities are also continually kept up to date with equipment and information systems.

Much of the company’s long running success is attributed to the Controlled Atmospheric Long-Term Storage Technology - completed at the end of 2013 - it helps to maintain the freshness of the fruit produce, ensuring a reliable and all year round supply of quality fruit.

Oxygen content is regulated within the cold stores and by keeping the levels very low, the fruit is prevented from ripening – some of the best produce can be kept in these conditions for up to 10 months.

This controlled atmosphere (CA) storage enables

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company profile

Two-a-Day Group to store up to 74% of its crop this way. The company also maintains carton re-cooling stores. Once the cartons have been packed, they are then re-cooled at zero degrees for up to three weeks before being distributed to clients all over the world.

“We’ve made a 10,000 bin, controlled atmosphere cold store investment and that is now up and running

“We embrace the science of fruit growing from a technology point of view and that is what is going to help us drive the business forward in the next 20 years” and has increased our controlled atmosphere capacity by roughly 5%,” van Zyl explains. “We have also invested in Dynamic Controlled Atmosphere (DCA) technology.

This is because the chemical DPA (Diphenylamine),

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used to keep apples fresh during storage, is banned in continental Europe so we had to invest in DCA so that we can store products during their marketing window.”

DISTRIBUTION MARKETS Van Zyl explains the company divides the African market into three geographical areas and once the fruit reaches its optimum, it is ready for distribution.

“There is what we call over border; which is Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, the DRC, Zimbabwe and Mozambique and countries just to the north of us. For these markets we will use road transport.

We have looked at opportunities to build or buy a facility in one of these countries, but after looking at all the pros and cons we decided to rather do it in the north of South Africa. We feel that we can increase over border sales significantly. Because of the facility that we have built, we will be able to handle much more volumes.

“The second area is West Africa which is from Angola upwards to Nigeria and Ivory Coast and the whole western part of the continent. The taste profile there is very different to our third area, the Eastern part of Africa, which includes Uganda, Kenya and countries in that region.In the very north of Africa, countries like Egypt and Libya, we see that as part of our Middle Eastern market.”

Two-a-Day Group

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company profile

HIGH-TECH Much of the success of Two-a-Day Group is attributed to the implementation and use of innovative technology, particularly mobile devices, making the process and distribution a much more cost and time efficient one.

Over the last ten years, technology has, inevitably, advanced greatly and is now used across the company sectors, in horticultural technology and the orchards.

“We embrace the science of fruit growing from a technology point of view and that is what is going to help us drive the business forward in the next 20 years,” explains van Zyl. More recently, Two-a-Day Group has invested in technological improvements for the packing house equipment and cold storage facilities, helping to improve the efficiency and day-to-day running of its operations.

“With the pack house technology, the machinery that we had was old and we’ve put in machinery that can do weight sorting, diameter sorting, colour sorting and defect sorting,” explains van Zyl. “In the past, the old machines only did weight sorting so this makes a huge difference. This will help us to drive productivity and will also allow for increased accuracy in packing thanks to much more precise weighing technology.”

With the ability to sort each of the fruits according

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to colour, size or blemishes, the new machinery can also detect any potential defects such as bruising and even check fruit internally for early browning or water core signs.

Van Zyl explains how this equipment works and why it’s so effective: “It takes 70 photos per fruit and they are all HD photos. The machine turns the fruit and turns all the photos into a stream and builds an image of every fruit, looking at colour intensity and blemishes. It is software driven so can pick out bruises or wind marks. It is wonderful technology that will definitely help us a lot.”

PROVIDING FOR THE CUSTOMER Within the Two-a-Day Group, the company, through a range of subsidiaries, is able to offer an extensive range of customer driven value-added services. The sales and marketing sector, Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing (Pty), helps to both provide the necessary marketing and expertise support for the local and international markets. With the rising cost of packaging, APL Cartons (Pty) was set up to help counteract this and has now positioned itself as a major player within the South African packaging industry.

The affiliated company, Elgin Fruit Juices (Pty) Ltd, produce apple and pear concentrates for many leading

Two-a-Day Group brands of cider, baby food and fruit juices. These are distributed to the local African markets and on an international scale with the helping hand of Link Supply Chain Management (Pty) Ltd which supplies the global shipping, logistical and transport services.

“All of the companies are partly owned by the Two-aDay Group, however, each company has a board and a Managing Director,” explains van Zyl. “Our input into those companies comes from our shareholding and our board positions.

“The objective of all of these companies is exactly the same – to maximise the bottom line of the growers.”

FUTURE PLANS Looking to the future and Two-a-Day Group has set its sights on China as its next big growth market.

“The one market that we don’t have access to currently is China. We’ve been struggling for close to 15 years now to supply our apples and pears in China,” say Van Zyl. Looking at the statistics, there’s no doubt over the potential China holds for the company’s international export market and in the future, its footprint too, as van Zyl explains: “Apple production in China counts for

45% of the world’s apple production and South Africa counts for perhaps 2% so we are a small part of total global figures. The Chinese taste profile is very specific so we won’t be able to sell all varieties there and this means China will not be a massive part of our global footprint initially but I see no reason why it cannot grow to perhaps 5-10% of our global footprint.”

With such exponential growth, particularly over the last ten years, Two-a-Day attributes much of this to the new and innovative technology it has implemented and the sustainable practises it has adopted; helping to create a much smoother and more efficient operation, with export markets now stretching from Africa and beyond.

“As a grower, to be sustainable, you have to be able to increase your production significantly on existing hectares. If we are able to that, and I’m sure we are by embracing technology, then our growers will be sustainable for at least the next 20 years.

“Our business model, the fact that we embrace technology across our different divisions, our global reach and our adherence to world class standards are really the keys to our success,” concludes van Zyl

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