DE KEUR: Rich Pickings for South Africa’s Cultivating Kings

The De Keur legacy began in fairly unassuming fashion in the Ceres Valley, when Charl ‘Tippie’ du Toit acquired the De Keur farm in the Koue Bokkeveld mountain range in the Western Cape. With the site snapped up for the princely sum of £9,600 at a public auction held on March 28th, 1934, the transaction was sealed under the very same beautiful old oak trees that the farm retains and from which it continues to benefit from today.

De Keur is blessed with land famous for its extremely fertile soils. Responsible for many a best-ever harvest in spite of drought and other plights and vital for the production of deciduous fruit, both the region and this legendary company have become hugely important to the South African fruit export industry.

A pioneer of ethical farming, Tippie du Toit passed on the best-in-class practices and principles that gave the burgeoning De Keur such a solid grounding to his sons, Charl and Gys, who developed the farm into the industrial operation that it is today, plunging all of their effort and emotion into the production of quality fruits.

ENERGISED BY NATURE

“Tippie du Toit was a man that believed in good farming practices, respect for all living things, honesty, fairness and dignity to all men,” De Keur rounds up. “After all, “A farmer is a humble servant of nature; his role is to give nature the opportunity to produce the best possible fruit. Nature creates, man only guides.” Continuing what he had tirelessly built up before them, Charl and Gys embraced the business and bought the Leeuwrivier and Rocklands farms in 1973 and 1981 respectively, as additional production units.

Both these estates are also situated in the Koue Bokkeveld and conjure rich crops of onion, apples and pears, while Leeuwrivier adds nectarines and peaches to the repertoire. In 2008 the pair brought on board the duo of Môreson and De Hoop farms in the Wolseley area, which again further expanded the product line to encompass blueberries and onion seedlings.

A fruit packing facility in Ceres has also been in the De Keur armoury for more than 20 years, which extends the business’s presence across the supply chain. The facility currently packs all of the De Keur Estate’s fruit, as well as offering contract packing options to other local producers. “Owning our own packing facility gave us the opportunity and control to pack our fruit, meeting the exact demands and needs of our customers,” De Keur says.

“Our packing facility has evolved over the years to cater for all the needs of our customers, especially the Freshmark Group who is the main supplier of fresh produce to the Shoprite Checkers Group. We strive to innovate and improve on packaging methods and material to give our consumers products that fulfil their expectations and much more.”

The facility is operational year-round, and provides work to about 150 permanent workers, with a further 200 employed in high season. Rocklands also houses a similar facility where all of De Keur’s onions are packed and processed for the respective markets.

“We are committed to supplying safe, quality assured, fresh and wholesome fruit that meet or exceeds our customer’s requirements and importantly comply with industry standards,” the company says. “We pride ourselves on being at the forefront of technology and agricultural science, as it’s paramount to increasing productivity and providing sustainability for the long term.

“The aim of all technology is to transfer information effectively throughout the business in order to maximise productivity, efficiency and above all, quality.” De Keur Fruit Packing is the perfect emblem of this commitment, a state-of-the-art facility, designed to grade, pack and handle fruit in the optimal way. MAF RODA Agrobotic was carefully selected as partner to take it through this vital next step of modernisation into the future of packing the right quality fruit, in the best and most effective manner, in order to suit consumer needs.

“We strive for packing excellence and our new state-of-the-art MAF RODA packing line enables us to do just that,” declared Marina Potgieter, Director Packing Services. “We believe that we invested in a superior packing line with cutting edge technology which allows gentle fruit handling, precise sizing and sorting, defect detection and increased production.

FRUITFUL TIMES AHEAD

“We also strongly believe in staying up to date with new innovations and technology in the fruit packing industry. Equipment is continually updated as new technology becomes available to increase efficiency and improve fruit handling.” This quest for efficiency extends to such matters as payroll processes and management reporting, extensively overhauled last year through the implementation of Sage 300 People to achieve greater automation and cater to the business’s rapid growth.

“The desktop product we were using before Sage 300 People served us well for many years, but we realised that we could improve efficiencies and streamline our business by implementing a newer solution,” opined Johan du Plessis, HR Manager De Keur Group on gaining access to an intuitive set of tools to avoid potential errors and hours lost to manual tasks. “Sage 300 People gives us a real-time view of our payroll, so we always have our finger on the pulse.”

In 2019, De Keur embarked on its maiden exhibition at the South African pavilion at Asia Fruit Logistica. Already a big supplier to European markets, De Keur counts huge international clients including the UK’s Tesco and Marks & Spencer as customers and comprehensive accreditation lends it a formidable base from which to launch into new markets.

“Asia is an important market in our marketing basket for various reasons,” outlined Cathrine Smuts, Marketing Manager. “So far we haven’t shipped apples to China but we have registered orchards for the 2020 season. China is a complex market but it’s one that pays good prices for high quality product, so the coming season is going to be a good learning curve for us.”

With the famed De Keur quality on offer in the form of an increasingly wide range of produce and in more and more corners of the globe, the company’s dedicated staff bring it all together in the push for cultivating perfection. “At De Keur we have a proud heritage of looking after our employees, which is a wonderful tradition that our grandfather Tippie started by treasuring his relationship with all of his employees,” De Keur concludes, with a look to what has yet to come for the growing greats.

“In recent years a number of the ‘next generation’ has joined the business fulfilling a number of key roles from general management, production, and marketing to packaging and administration. This generation is proud to be associated with the De Keur legacy that their grandfather Tippie began in 1934, and they look forward to nurturing the legacy for generations to come.”