For many years the South African fruit industry has shown an interest in Phytosanitary Irradiation which has been limited thus far to effects of dose on a wide variety of fruits including table grapes, litchis, citrus, nectarines, peaches, plums and mangoes amongst others.
 In 2010 the USDA APHIS licence was awardee to HEPRO for table grapes to the USA. But due to a variety of factors this never culminated in sustained throughputs for that destination.
 More recently (as of the 2021 2022 season) the decision by the Vietnamese plant protection authorities to allow only irradiated airfreighted grapes into their country presented HEPRO with an opportunity to explore this market (seafreight containers are exposed to steri-cool processes).
 The two table grape seasons of 20-21 and 20-22 have highlighted the importance of planning taking into account extraneous factors besides just successfully irradiating top quality fruit.
Seldom before have global uncertainties presented so many challenges:

• Growing, picking, packing and the influence of
  • weather conditions
  • labour
  • packing materials
• Transport : from the farm to the cold store to the irradiator to the airport / harbour
• Health conditions of people at all points of contact. COVID has been instrumental in so many challenges
• Costs increasing due to scarcity of supplies
• Geopolitics
• Availability of Cobalt 60

 
As a result the volumes of table grapes sent from RSA to Vietnam by airfreight have allowed the niche market to remain intact and given seafreight exporters the time to get their product to market. Without this possibility fruit would reach the market too late for the Chinese New Year, an important event when high quality fruit is offered as gifts.