Farmers band together to set-up banana ripening facility
After his banana ripening facility at the Ugu Market in Mkholombe was burnt to the ground, Engelbrecht partnered with Cardinaux and Kvalsvig to develop a new ripening facility to ensure that distribution continues.
After the looting and riots wreaked havoc across the province two weeks ago, the South Coast did not escape unscathed in areas such as Port Edward, Harding and Izingolweni and Mkholombe where the Ugu Market is located.
Photo: Tebuho Zongwana
However, a few farmers have not taken the setback lying down. Hank Engelbrecht, owner of Makhuluskop Fresh Produce, Scott Kvalsvig of Marburg Banana Farm along with David Cardinaux who runs David’s Banana Farm, and many other farmers and suppliers have collaborated to ensure that business is back to normal.
After his banana ripening facility at the Ugu Market in Mkholombe was burnt to the ground, Engelbrecht partnered with Cardinaux and Kvalsvig to develop a new ripening facility to ensure that distribution continues.
“Each box bananas is sold at approximately R145 and overall the returns are R51 million in turnover. It’s food and job security that have been compromised. Makhuluskop, myself and other farmers had a meeting recently and we decided that we had to set-up a ripening room, and we had to do it quickly,” said Cardinaux.
The development of the facility between Oslo and the Skogheim area is expected to be there for the long run, as the construction of office facilities along with cold-rooms and other ripening rooms were being erected on the property.
“We want to reach the same capacity that we had in Marburg, and hopefully grow beyond that. We started with the ripening of the first batch of bananas on Monday this week,” Kvalsvig said.
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