While threats of stage-8 load shedding looms in the wake of winter, industries across the board are bracing for the impact. The managing director of Windmeul Eggs speaks to Paarl Post about the challenges suffered by the egg industry alone.
“Every industry faces major challenges and changes at a certain point in their history,” said Pier Passerini, who’s held this position for the last 12 years.
He observes that what makes this series of events so challenging, is that it affects all citizens and industries simultaneously -– from the single mother to the big corporate companies.
“In our system, it severely affects cost of production due to alternative energy resources that need to run at higher costs.
“On a social level our staff works everyday while running households at night without the much needed resources to fulfil their chores.”
Passerini has observed that this affects morale and, indirectly, productivity.
As was reported nationwide, the poultry and egg industry is suffering from tremendous blows, where farmers have lost millions of chicks or chickens due to rolling blackouts, contributing to lethal circumstances in the production environment of this fragile feathered livestock.
In an Eyewitness News story, the South African Poultry Association said processing has had to be reduced over the past few weeks owing to a backlog caused by extended load shedding.
As a result, 10 million chicks have had to be culled so far, raising fears about a chicken shortage.
This, in turn, also causes prices to soar, as revealed by Mail & Guardian which interviewed street vendors and small restaurants that are famous for their chicken cuisine.
Passerini paints the local picture of why this came to be so. “As an industry energy is paramount for our production farms and pack stations. Therefore we need secondary energy resources as back-ups. Running these-size generators comes with major costs compared to grid electricity.”
A further complication is, of course, the current price of diesel, the businessman added, which has increased considerably over the last 10 months.
To top all this, the procurement of diesel is becoming a major concern due to increased usage and demand.
Was Windmeul Eggs also forced to cull thousands, if not millions, of chicks/chickens during this time, as other farmers were?
“Fortunately we have not had any losses except for finance. Input costs are severely affected, alternative resources, such as solar, assist us,” Passerini said. “However, we will have to make major decisions on how we see our future within the green alternative space as a [functioning] company.”
For him the exact effects on retail prices remain a sensitive subject, “but prices will not be able to hold at the current rate of changes within the cost model. At the same time we are very aware of food price inflation affecting the consumer negatively”.
Hopefully, Windmeul Eggs will prove that alternative energy officially has a future as an industry of its own in South Africa, for it is looking at expanding its solar plants.
But when Passerini was asked how he would describe the power crisis in five words or less, he ended his choice of words on a positive note: “concerning, sad, disappointing, avoidable, opportunity.”
Asked what path to recovery the industry would need to face once the power crisis takes a turn for the better, his admiration for the collective soul of South Africa as a nation came to mind.
“We are a resilient nation, as our history has shown numerous times. My personal view is that the private sector will have to drive the changes and alleviate the pressure on government.
“It will unfortunately be our responsibility if we want to see rapid changes in the stability of the national power grid. Especially for the economy as a whole to show any growth which we so desperately need to create jobs for our young people.”
Windmeul Eggs is a farm located on the R45 (Malmesbury Road) in Northern Paarl. Founded in 1978, it established a world-class quality pack station and company that produces Pick n Pay’s free-range Canola eggs and Humpty Dumpty eggs.
