Issue 1 – November 2022

Naranja Insider For the Naranja Citrus packers and producers

▪ Food Safety and consumer behavior Awareness ▪ Our employee wellness ▪ Sour Rot – Causes and Effect

Clemengold won the Marketing campaign in China

Reliable. Quality. Consistently

Page 1

Contents Our Business

• Message from Packhouse Manager! – 2 • Food Safety and consumer behavior Awareness – 3 • Packhouse culture – 4 • Wellness awareness – 5 Our Growers • Make sure the basics in your business is done to perfection – 6 Our industry • Sour Rot – 7

Our customers • Maintaining our gold standard in the market – 8

Our Business

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Message from the packhouse manager The threats presented by black spot disease comes as the sector battles the impact brought on by the rising cost of inputs and instability caused by Russia's war in Ukraine. Fertiliser prices have shot up 56% between 2020 and 2021, and fuel prices have gone by 53%.

"Of even greater concern is record high freight rates, with shipping lines hiking their prices by 128% between 2020 Q1 and 2022 Q1. This means growers are having to pay virtually twice as much to ship their fruit, then what it cost to produce it over the course of an entire year.

Edrick Van Der Merwe Packhouse manager The citrus industry has met several challenges this year, the most significant related to exports to the EU. Earlier this year, the EU's Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed voted on a new requirement that forces southern African countries to implement extreme cold treatment to tackle false codling moth (FCM). The requirement led to the detention of 1,350 containers of citrus at EU ports, resulting in more than R200 million losses for growers. This season, the citrus industry has packed 138 million 15kg cartons of fruit for various export markets across the work, and it predicts that 167.2 million cartons will have been shipped by the end of the 2022 season. That would be 3.3 million cartons fewer than projections made at the start of the season. "At the same time, there has been a decline in real export prices across all varietals which is expected to continue for the next few years," the CGA said.

While there’s no way to avoid the sorrow, adversity, or distress caused by these factors there are ways to help smooth the rough waters and regain a sense of control. Resilience is the ability to cope with the loss, change, and trauma that have been inevitable parts of life even before these extraordinary times. As South African farmers, there is no better individuals that I have faith in to Building resilience that can help adapt to lifechanging events, cope with turbulent times, and bounce back from hardship and tragedy. To elevate as much pressure from the producers during these troubled times, cost efficiency and management is of utmost importance to drive as a focus point during the operations. Ensuring optimum efficiency and utilizations during production lowers the handling costs for producers as far as possible to ensure maximum returns. However, cost efficiency and optimization is not only the main driving factors, market utilization, harvesting practices and communication all contributes to the successful management thereof. I am proud to say that the Naranja management team, and it’s producers have the relation to ensure the best is done for both parties to ensure the feasible and financially viable contingency of our industry.

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Our Business

Food Safety and consumer behavior Awareness. Lesson learned by Zanele Silinda

Zanele Silinda originally comes from a farming township in Mpumalanga, Malelane (Schoemansdal). She matriculated from Mahhushe Agricultural High School. In 2013 she did her Diploma in Agriculture, Crop Production. She further went on to pursue a BTech degree in Agriculture, Crop Production and she is currently in a process of registering for her Honors Degree with TUT.

One thing Zanele is passionate about is making an impact in the food industry. The passion that she has, have steered her to a world of knowledge and revealed to her an ever-increasing awareness of Food Safety and consumer behavior. That is why she makes it her mission in the packhouse to take the necessary corrective steps to keep the quality of the product at the desired level. She rates Orri as her everyday favorite. “It is juicy & very easy to peel!” she concluded. Naranja Packers is grateful for your loyalty and dedication.

Zanele chose to be in the Agricultural industry because she believes that it is an important source of our livelihood in all parts of the world and want to be part of the sourcing. “Agriculture is life, without it, we are nothing.” She says. She joined Naranja Packers in 2018 as a line Quality Controller, she worked hard and she was really dedicated in her work. In 2020 she got promoted to become Quality Control Supervisor, her current role. This is her 5th year with our packhouse. She admits that the experience at Naranja has vividly taught her that as an employee or employer, an individual must be a good problem solver for the success of the organization. ‘’There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, there are no limits!” She quotes.

Zanele Silinda in the office.

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Our Business

Naranja Culture The packhouse management had during the season come up with a reward system for the employees. They saw it fit that the employees deserves incentives for the hard work they put through. Indeed the incentive system was successfully developed and implemented. The incentive system kept the employees well motivated throughout out the rest of the season.

We ended the season on a high, with employees receiving their certificate of appreciations which were awarded on the 27th September.

In the same spirit, Naranja management organized a wonderful team building session with supervisors and coordinators where team building games were played.

Quality assurance team after receiving their certificate

Work hard, Play hard! Bomb squad team building

In welcome of the Spring season, we had a fun day on the 2nd of September where employees showed up to work in the most colourful and hilarious costumes the packhouse has ever seen.

Naranja team on fun day.

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Our Business

Our employees’ wellness matters!

Packhouse management team on sport day.

At our packhouse we tend to deal with long working hours especially during peak season. As a packhouse we understand that this can increase employee stress and other health issues. We are also aware that our health wellness is a critical factor in our business success.

We wish to alert everyone of the importance of engaging in sports and other physical activities as a means to improve not only our physical health but also our mental health. Playing a sport can reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis and obesity.

Naranja employees on wellness day

Hence exercising and taking part in sports act as a great stress buster for everyone. We have incorporated various sporting activities into our wellness program, including soccer, netball, volleyball and tug war to help improve the health of our employees. The wellness day event was quite a success. We are glad that employees participated. The event kicked off with a fun colour run. The top 100 people to reach the finish line received their medals.

"When you exercise, it increases endorphins, dopamine, adrenaline and endocannabinoid — these are all brain chemicals associated with feeling happy, feeling confident, feeling capable, feeling less anxiety and stress and even less physical pain." States DR McGonigal. Colour run Champ: Moses Marimbela

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Our Growers

“Make sure the basics in your business is done to perfection.” Mr Lötter’s farvorite quote.

Leon Lötter production manager at Indigo Fruit Farming Naranja Farms Leon Lötter is the production manager at Indigo Fruit Farming, Naranja Farms. They are one of Naranja packers’ biggest producer. Mr Lötter grew up in Watervalsriver valley. His passion for citrus farming came from his grandfather. He is the 3rd generation Farming with citrus. Mr Lötter started working for Indigo Fruit Farming in 2014. This makes it his 8th year with the Naranja farms. Mr Lötter’s current mission is to produce top quality fruit at high volumes. He also aims to save as much money where it is possible. “We can control the money we spend but we can not control the money we earn” he says.

Naranja Farm currently employs 315 permanent employees and up to 1500 seasonal workers. Lötter personally prefers farming 2PH lemons. He finds the 2PH commodity to be advantageous over seeded lemons which provides them with a competitive edge on the market. He further states that “We are achieving high tons per hectare with good size and pack outs.” With risks being inevitable in the farming industry, Mr Lotter finds hail to be a big challenge in the Burgersfort area. He therefore ensures that their crops are insured and hail nets are put up to prevent hail damage over their fruit. Another challenge is picking 1500+ bins a day and all Mr Lötter can do is to support and trust his production team to get the job done. “Working with nature is always a challenge, especially to get the crop set and preventing fruit damage,” he says “we trust our fruit set and crop protection strategies.” The citrii and probe scheduler platforms are two of Mr Lötter’s personal favourite business tools that helps him to stay organised as a farmer.

Our Industry Information

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Sour Rot Causes and Effects Packhouse Management: This disease is caused by the pathogen Geotrichum citri-aurantii. It is present in the soil and can spread to low-hanging fruit via droplet splash after rain or irrigation. This pathogen infects mostly through wounds but can also spread from infected to neighboring healthy fruit without requiring a wound, with the high rainfall received during the 2022 season sour rot’s prevalence could be anticipated. A couple of measures to control the risk of sour rot could be put in place on both packhouse and farms as mentioned below:

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Reduce any delay from harvest to first fungicide application

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Drench application in correct dosage, contact time and coverage

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Fruit sanitation - Fruit should be thoroughly pre-sorted to remove all rotten fruit prior to entering the packhouse.

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A separate sanitation action (i.e., total loss chlorine spray or Ozone) should be applied just before fungicide application, but after sorting

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The longer the delay before putting packed export fruit under cold storage the higher the risk of the development of sour rot infections

Why not go out on a limb?

Orchard Management:

At the end of the day…

• Rainfall in the week prior to harvest increase infection probability

Orchard and packhouse practices as mentioned above become a crucial part of managing this disease. In a season such as the current one more diligence is necessary to combat at least the spread of this disease. The principle of CSCS should be practiced:

• Poor orchard sanitation • Prevalence of wounds on fruit • Poor fruit fly and false codling moth control leads to a higher incidence of wounds where sour rot can develop • Navel-end cracks or split fruit will also provide wounds for sour rot infections

C – Clean orchards S – Swift processing of fruit from harvest to export

C – Clean Packline S – Swift cold chain initiation

*Sourced from the CRI Cutting Edge No 199 & 317

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Our Market

Maintaining our gold standard in the market

ClemenGold is one of our premium brand exported to our non-discerning program markets and supplied locally only to Woolworths. ClemenGold is well known as a wonderfully sweet and aromatic soft citrus fruit that is sun-ripened and handpicked by our growers. The brand is increasing becoming popular internationally, especially in China. It is popular because of the high internal and external quality including the packaging and labelling which make it stand out in the market. Recently the brand won the Marketing campaign in China. This was awarded by Global Produce Events at Asia fruit Logistica in Bangkok. The ceremony was attended and celebrated by many of our receivers It is therefore our responsibility both on our farms and in our packhouse to ensure that we produce the right quality for our markets. The quality comes from the way our growers dedicate themselves in orchard management, nurturing young seedlings to become fruit bearing trees that carry fruit that is fragrantly ripe and ready to eat. The care taken when picking and transporting to the packhouse. Our food safety culture implemented in our packhouse also contribute in making sure that we pack the right quality, complying with the required industry standards to ensure that we meet our customers expectations.

Our fruits displayed on shelves in a China.