August 4 2024, letter 2: Restaurateurs and retailers should celebrate and protect the food heritage of SA
Restaurants and retailers are crucial stakeholders in showcasing South Africa's great foods. Some have made efforts to showcase famous food products of European heritage. However, they ignore the gems in local foods. It is time to be knowledgeable and honest about the origins of the food products served to South Africans and tourists.
A bit of history here and there would add to the experience and such history would also market our beautiful country's various agricultural and food-producing regions — a small effort with significant returns.
Because South Africa produces such a wide variety of high-quality foods, promoting one region or taste doesn't necessarily mean others are substandard. Instead, it signals the different flavours and respects consumers' preferences.
Labelling products correctly in the store and on the menu will enhance consumers' eating and shopping experience. Consumers are tired of commodities without specific details of the product's origin.
Consider lamb: we have Kalahari lamb, Karoo lamb, Free State lamb and lamb from other regions. These should be sold and marketed to consumers as such products. Yet, the dilemma is that wholesalers and retailers are inclined to market any lamb as Karoo lamb, which is more famous and has a relatively greater reputational value than the other regions.
By equating Karoo lamb to any lamb, we have undermined the premium value of the lamb produced by Karoo farmers under very harsh conditions and with long distances to markets. The wholesalers and retailers hold the Karoo abattoirs and farmers at ransom by not paying the appropriate price for their lamb because they know they are getting good quality lamb for a low price under the argument: that is what the market dictates and what consumers can afford. How can we be sure when the product has not been differentiated and marketed appropriately to consumers?
Consequently, we now have all sorts of lamb mixed with top-quality Karoo lamb in the trade, which leads to confusion, especially when a consumer might not have tasted the Karoo meat before and can't differentiate it well. I have had such experiences with some restaurants.
So, having heard about the market issues of Karoo lamb and feeling that the farmers are not fairly compensated for their great product, I decided to travel to the Karoo to see what it was all about. I attended some farmers' meetings and listened to their concerns. I walked in the veld, smelled the herbaceous and medicinal flavours of the Karoo bushes and imagined the meat being “spiced on the hoof”. I also saw the animals in the veld appearing very happy, not disturbed and choosing between different bushes as they grazed. My walk in the veld ended with a Karoo braai — with real Karoo lamb chops on the fire. Wow, what an experience! This is what one wishes all those supporting agritourism would experience over time in our great country.
Let's market South Africa's high-quality food products and encourage restaurants and retailers to be a bit more transparent and add history; which would enhance the experience. All South African products are of great quality, and transparency about the origins adds to the food experience. And to all those farm stalls and delicatessens that claim they sell “regte egte Karoo lamb” please do the correct thing: buy the carcass which says Karoo GI. Do the same for our great wines, fruits and other meats!
This also has the potential to drive agritourism and a positive image of our great country.
August 7, 2024, Letter 5: Marketing Karoo products
Today, I joined farmers to see how they market their Karoo products. First, we walked about 5km or so in the morning, collecting a herd of sheep from various camps — through the rocky veld and in the chilly wind of the Karoo morning. We finally got them to the kraal for sorting and selection. The next task was to wean the lambs from their mothers and to keep the young females for continuous reproduction. The males were ready for the market.
In the farmers' quest to operate sustainably and not expose the fragile grazing veld to too many sheep, given the low rainfall season, some lambs are taken to the feedlot to prepare them for an unknown meat market.
However, some that have grown well in the veld are transported to the abattoir for slaughter and will be marketed as true Karoo lamb. They were born and raised on a registered Karoo farm without feeding or any other intervention.
The meat is of superior quality because of the region's attributes — clean air, clean water, extreme cold and extreme heat, all contributing to reducing diseases without interventions. Moreover, the carcass is of good quality and fat is ingrained in the meat, giving it a unique taste, flavour and tenderness.
Within two days, the carcasses will be loaded on a refrigerated truck to the Western Cape, where a boutique butchery will prepare them to be sold as Karoo lamb to appreciative consumers across the country who support Karoo lamb production — and farmers — as a heritage food product. Although this is limited in some regions and we continue to see restaurants marketing any lamb as Karoo — bad behaviour.
This production unit of 800 ewes may seem big and could be classified as a large-scale commercial farm. However, the turnover in rands and cents is far below R5m, a cut-off for small and micro businesses. This is a real family farm. In our previous work on the Oxford Handbook of the South African Economy, we estimated that there are roughly 200,000 family farms of various shapes and sizes among the black and white farming community. Today, I experienced the life of a family farmer.
This farm has a dual-purpose sheep breed, which produces superior wool and meat products. Therefore, the remaining sheep will continue the production process. In September, we will be in the shearing season for wool. The wool will then be transported to Gqeberha. There it will be auctioned to buyers, who export it to various markets. The primary buyer of South African wool is China. They buy wool and process it — washing and spinning — then sell it to the clothing and fashion industry, where the final product includes beautiful jerseys, scarves, suits and so on. Thus, we always emphasise the strong interlinkages between agriculture and fashion — farming is fashion.
China is a major global buyer of wool. We export about 70% of our wool to China. Thus, when there are temporary closures in this market, the sheep farmers feel burned more than most. For example, in 2022, when South Africa experienced foot-and-mouth disease, the Chinese market was temporarily closed to South African wool, although the disease was only in cattle.
The impact of those temporary closures is visible on export volumes of wool. Wool exports fell by 19% year on year to 42,239t in 2022. The major decline in volume was in the Chinese market. Fortunately, the engagements between the South African and Chinese authorities to reassure them of the safety measures in place to ensure that there is no spread of disease led to the resumption of exports. In 2023, wool exports recovered by 18% year on year to 49,715t.
In essence, farming is a challenging and yet satisfying endeavour. There are domestic and global challenges that farmers have to face at various stages. Thus, we all must support the South African heritage foods and agricultural products, which ultimately means supporting the farming communities of our great country.
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