Leaner team commits to continued research and development
Ray Smuts
THE WHITE flag is by no means up at TransFresh Africa but the Controlled Atmosphere technology pioneer in South Africa finds itself in troubled waters after a drastic erosion of market share which has of necessity led to several 'revitalising' measures being adopted.
In one of the most surprising developments, TransFresh's quiet-spoken managing director Dr Malcolm Dodd is to leave the company at the end of October to pursue other interests. He will be succeeded by current operations manager Arthur Kemp who who takes on the position of general manager.
Kemp is loathe to enter into specifics about TransFresh's flagging fortunes, down between 60% and 70% since last November, but FTW understands from word in the marketplace that the dilemma stems largely from the predilection by the SAECs consortium (Maersk Sealand, Safmarine P&O Nedlloyd and Deutche Afrika-Linien) for promoting and using Everfresh/Starfresh CA in preference to other CA brands.
"It's been a traumatic process for us, not nice, but the foot has got to fit the shoe and the shoe has become a little too small," Kemp told this correspondent while sketching the background to the dilemma and outlining plans for the immediate future. (Turnover is expected to plummet by around 50% this year from some R8 million last year).
"The drop in marketshare means that TransFresh has had to reconsider the way it does business in South Africa and it has decided to restructure the company to suit future volumes and growth.
"Our brief is to grow some of the business back but we do not anticipate we will regain what we had previously, 90% of the market in 1999 which declined to about 55% last year and now stands at between 20% and 25%."
Restructuring any business usually calls for extreme measures and in this instance has included retrenching seven of the ten members of staff leaving only Kemp, office manager Pauline Scott and Neil Lasker who handles quality control in the port.
Charles Phillipson, former manager of service and logistics and one of those retrenched, will take charge of preparation and servicing of containers on an outsourced basis from July 1 while other services wll also be outsourced.
TransFresh has, in a letter from Dodd, assured clients it remains committed to continuing to provide the best levels of service. Pointing to the growth of CA usage over the past year or two, he says such change and the dynamic nature of the fruit export environment have led to TransFresh reviewing operations and structures to ensure it continues to meet client needs in the most cost-effective way possible.
"The technology may be old but it is working very well and at the end of the day we are delivering a consistent atmosphere in the container throughout the voyage, which goes to show it does not really matter how you achieve it but that you achieve it."
This, he says, is borne out by TransFresh's 99,7% success rate.
Despite the restructuring of the company, Kemp has made it clear that TransFresh will continue its research and development programme at the University of Stellenbosch and its funding of various research institutes.
"We are in fact adding new dimensions in terms of handling techniques and refined atmospheres for the shipping of fresh produce in CA," he added.
Arthur Kemp . . . adding new dimensions in terms of handling techniques
