As South Africa’s pomegranate season comes to an end, chairman of the country’s Pomegranate Association (POMASA) Jack Wittles, awaits final statistics on exports and packing. Here, he talks with www.freshfruitportal.com about the outlook ahead for the fruit. 

Over the next five years South Africa’s pomegranate industry will significantly expand as many young orchards come to fruition, seriously pushing up the commercial volume available.

Set this against a backdrop of increasing consumer demand at home and abroad, Wittles is very optimistic for the future of what he now classifies as a 'young industry'.

The 2016 season has just finished and looks set to be a solid one, possibly even a 'record'.

"We stopped packing about two weeks ago and it’s a little too soon to give any statistics as I’m waiting to hear exactly what was packed, but my initial impression is that has been a very good season," he tells www.freshfruitportal.com.

"This is not unexpected because it’s a young industry and there are plantings coming on stream all of the time with approximately 900 hectares in production with around 80 growers."

Wonderful, Aco and Hershkowitz are the leading varieties grown across the Western and Eastern Capes and some northern provinces.

This year's export campaign has focused on supplying the U.K., Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and to a lesser extent some Far Eastern destinations.

"The biggest volumes are selling the fruit as a whole, but there are meaningful volumes exported for processing, in other words for aril extraction.

"Perhaps up to 30% of our export volume is exported for aril extraction."

“Pomegranates are not user friendly so if you help this by extracting the arils or by providing a good quality pressed pure pomegranate juice, you make it so much more accessible for the consumer."

Arils are gaining traction across Europe and particularly in the U.K. where several major retailers have tapped into the seeds as a convenient and healthy-eating snack. This is also true in South Africa.

"I would think in the next five years we will see at least a doubling on volumes in terms of overall production.

“In South Africa the pomegranate is not an inexpensive fruit, but the demand is growing and it’s not because of it being competitively priced, it’s because of people’s greater awareness of the benefits of consuming pomegranates.

"The demand in South Africa seems to be more for arils and juice than for whole fruit. Here in South Africa we are not succeeding in the fresh fruit market as I hoped we would, but the aril market is growing very well."

For the last two years the season has run early which means harvesting started in early February and finished at the end of April.

The growing conditions of the Western Cape with its winter rainfall and Mediterranean climate, favors pomegranate production, according to Wittles.

"It’s an area where we can produce a fruit with very good color and good sugars. I know that some of our competing Southern hemisphere countries (Peru, Chile and Argentina), seem to battle with color and perhaps that has to do with the much higher temperatures than we have here.

"Pomegranates as a fruit type are fairly susceptible to a variety of disease and pests so it’s about being able to produce the right quality of fruit, which is without a doubt the biggest challenge.

"However, we are seeing improvements every season so I’m very positive about the future of the pomegranate industry because it seems to me that we’ve turned a corner."

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