For the first time in history, Namibia is exporting tons of blueberries. This is possible since the small fruit is grown next to the Kavango River at Mashare Berries Farming and the challenging transport to their destinations in Europe is handled by Transworld Cargo, another Namibian company. The product is exported under the brand “Namib Blue”.
On the 6th of October 2020, Mashare Berries Farming passed the 100-ton mark in their first year of production, which is a remarkable achievement. The first seven tons were loaded on a Eurowing Airbus A330 on the 21st of September 2020 and reached Frankfurt the next day. More shipments of the sought after berries followed and have found their way into the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Russia, and even Hong Kong. More berries than expected have also been sold locally.
The difficult part of distributing blueberries is that the small fruit has to be kept at a temperature just above freezing all the way. Once harvested the blueberries have to reach the cold storage within half an hour, where they are cooled down to a few degrees Celsius. The fragile bluish/purple fruit are very sensitive to pressure and temperatures. Therefore the fruit is packed and sorted in cool rooms at very low temperatures. The local workforce have to wear thick jackets and pants at their workplace while outside the temperature is way above 30˚C.
After the blueberries are packed into cartons, the boxes are neatly stacked onto pallets and then moved into the next cool rooms to wait to be loaded onto refrigerator trucks for transport to Hosea Kutako International Airport or destinations within Namibia. When on the road the valuable cargo should be kept at a constant low temperature; the same conditions are maintained at the special holding facility at the airport where the berries arrive a few hours before the plane departs to Europe.
Strict health regulations are followed at Mashare Berries Farming. Every employee has to wash and sanitise their hands every morning before starting work. All equipment has to be washed before being used. The wearing of face masks on the fields and in the packing facility is a must in these times of COVID-19. Every time the pickers bring in their buckets with the freshly picked blueberries at a mobile collecting point in the field, they have to wash their hands and buckets. Numerous water points are in the field where the workers can quench their thirst. The employees packing the berries have to wash and sanitise their hands on a regular base too.
Packed into special containers, the Namib Blues are loaded into a Eurowing plane and reach Frankfurt ten hours later. Loggers inside the pallets monitor the temperature the whole way – from the cool room at Mashare to the wholesaler in the northern hemisphere. The very low temperature is critical for the consumer to purchase tasty and fresh blueberries. For this to happen the Namibian companies Mashare Berries Farming, Transworld Cargo, and NelSnel have to work together closely and were able to make the first year that the amazing product was available in Namibia a resounding success.
The success story is not only limited to an unusual product being grown in Namibia and exported but that 450 rural women have found a job in the Kavango-East region and that in the year to come, more will employed by Mashare Berries Farming. It is expected that the plants will produce more fruit next year on the 20-hectare field which is currently in production. It cost about 90 million Namibia Dollars to get the blueberry project off the ground; this was made possible with financial backing from private equity firm Königstein Capital.