Tomato sales teams from the fresh produce agency, RSA Group, were invited by ZZ2 to their EsméFour farm on the banks of the Limpopo River over the weekend.

According to Clive Garrett, Marketing Manager of ZZ2, the event was attended by 14 sales agents from the fresh produce markets in Johannesburg, Tshwane, Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban and Mooketsi. They were showed the newly refurbished pack-house, the extended tomato fields and flood water extraction from the Limpopo River.

The upgraded pack-house forms part of a major infrastructure investment on the remote EsméFour farm, 60 km east of Musina. A new 1.3 million cubic metre water reservoir was built and is used to store flood water from the Limpopo River. In January this year, with the drought at a critical level, ZZ2 increased production on EsméFour by 60%. This led to the decision to upgrade the pack-house earlier than anticipated to handle the increased volumes of tomatoes.

Understanding the challenges that sales agents face, is of utmost importance, says Clive Garrett. “Conversely it gave the agents an insight into ZZ2’s production techniques and the logistics involved in getting the tomatoes to market. ZZ2’s three converters of value; production, pack-houses/logistics and marketing were discussed in detail and ideas were shared.”

Using commission agents to sell their products, has been one of ZZ2’s key success factors since inception, says Clive. “The benefit for customers of selling through sales agents is transparent price discovery based on supply and demand.”