CONTRIBUTORS - TALKING TIMBER
Nailing increased
timber demand
A newly installed Wood-Mizer resew at a Northern Cape pallet
manufacturer is delivering several benefits, not only to the
company but to the local farming community.
By Etienne Nagel of Wood-Mizer
Pallets and create: pallets and wooden crates are examples of wooden packaging farmers rely on to transport their farming products.
S
outh Africa’s Northern Cape province is the driest
area in the country with an average rainfall of only
202mm. The dry conditions are not ideal for growing
trees and therefore there is hardly any marketable timber
available in the area except for firewood.
The lack of timber and the high demand for timber
packaging to ship produce from the area to end-users
gave Zak Gerber, the owner of JJZ Gerber Houtwerke BK
in Upington, the idea to start a pallet manufacturing
business.
Upington is located on the banks of the Orange River,
South Africa’s largest river and flows for almost 2 300km
from the interior, past Upington to the Atlantic Ocean on
South Africa’s West Coast. The river is the lifeblood of
the area.
The town and farmers use the river’s water to sustain
the town and produce desert wines, table grapes, dried
60 APRIL / MAY 2018 //
fruits and animal feed for livestock farming. The baking
desert sun concentrates grapes into super sweet wines
while the heat dries millions of tons of fruit into dried fruit
products that are exported globally.
Farmers along the Orange River valley depend on timber
pallets, crates and wooden packaging to dry fruit and
transport their produce to market. Zak Gerber is one of the
many successful grape and raisin farmers that have farmed
in the area over several generations.
While farming he saw the need for pallets and crating.
His passion for making furniture also gave him a taste for
manufacturing. But to start a timber manufacturing
business in an area with no timber would be tough - unless
the timber scarcity could somehow be used as a
springboard to success?
Before JJZ Gerber Houtwerke was started, pallets and
crating came by road from suppliers several hundred