THE PEOPLE
Summerpride employs a wide range of professional and committed staff …
THE PROCESS
Our Pineapple is sourced from 4683 ha of pineapple growing lands…
THE PRODUCT
On the farm, Our Quality Control starts with the selections of variety…
We Are The Pineapple People
Summerpride is South Africa’s largest pineapple processor.
We convert our fruit into Pineapple Juice Concentrate for local and international beverage producers. We offer top quality service and product to the market by controlling our value chain from the pineapple farms all the way through to the consumer.
Because of our geographical location, our products have a distinctive pineapple taste, with our concentrate being sought after as the preferred base for many tropical fruit juices and blends throughout the world.
Currently we supply 92% of our annual production to world-wide export markets, with the balance being consumed locally.
Introduction
It all started in a village called Bathurst, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa in 1865 when a local farmer found some pineapple tops in a barbershop and planted them on his farm. The rest is history, and the area around Bathurst is now the biggest pineapple growing region in South Africa. It’s beautiful too – within an hour’s drive, depending on the direction you choose, are some of the world’s most stunning beaches, and game reserves where the big 5 animals roam in their natural habitat.
We consider ourselves a family business. Some of our farmers are 7th generation and some of the farm workers are too, their families tilling the soil side by side for over 150 years. We’re very proud of the fact that all our workers, from farm workers to the people on the factory floor, have shares in our business.
We farm a long way south of the equator, 33.5º to be precise, making us one of the southernmost growing regions in the world. As a result, our pineapples take longer than most to grow and this is why they have such a unique taste.
Producing Pineapples For Over 150 Years
Our fruit is the economic lifeblood of the area in which they are grown, and to underline this we built the world’s biggest pineapple in Bathurst. It’s a famous landmark and people come to visit it from all over. The view from the top of it is breathtaking.