On June 12, 2025, Francois Rossouw Jr. won the 2025 Agri Western Cape Santam Young Farmer of the Year award. The win evokes his remarkable management of table grape production on the 310-hectare family-run Mooigezicht Estates in Hex River Valley, South Africa. This at a time when seedless grapes, some of which the farm produces, lead South Africa’s table grape acreage. 

The expertise and prolific precision practices behind the win are all captured in the following interview with Selina Wamucii.

Francois first details how Mooigezicht Estates remains optimistic by expanding the breeding and production of seedless grapes.

“Mooigezicht Estates as a company has for many years now transitioned into planting only seedless varieties. We have a very good relationship with the top Table Grape varieties breeders around the world and visit them regularly in Spain and the USA to stay on top and trail the latest varieties before deciding to plant them. 

“We stay positive and optimistic regarding the production of seedless table grapes in South Africa and will keep on expanding as opportunities comes by.”

Quality Table Grapes 

And what is the secret to the high quality of table grapes from Mooigezicht Estates?

“We believe it is important to always stay on top and improve our table grape production methods and inputs through partnering with the leading experts in our field of business.” Says Francois.  “This gives us the ability to ensure we implement the latest innovation and production techniques in our farming business to produce high quality fruits. 

“We also focus on farming very intensively through which we could make sure we optimise our resources at their full potential. Precision farming techniques of course help us with this as well and to further improve quality.” 

It is such precision that underlines the internationally competitive table grape export profile of South Africa:

“As South Africa, we are still largely competitive in our traditional markets which are the EU and UK. This is due to the shorter transit times and trade agreements we have with them, enabling us to deliver quality table grapes for many generations now.

“In other newer developed markets such as South East Asian, China and USA the import tariffs and phytosanitary protocols makes it very hard for SA table grapes to compete against our other Southern Hemisphere competitors such as Chile, Peru and Australia. Secondly, other countries such as Chile, Peru and China’s production on Table grapes keeps on increasing exponentially which also puts more pressure on the supply vs demand. 

“Even though so, SA still produces, according to most overseas buyers, table grapes with the best eating quality around the world.” 

Ends Francois on that gourmet note. 

About Mooigezicht Estates

Situated in the Hex River Valley in Western Cape Province, South Africa, Mooigezicht Estates focuses on seedless table grape farming. The farm offers white, red and black seedless table grape cultivars, three times a year, i.e early-, mid- and late-season. According to the company’s website, Mooigezicht Estates is a third-generation family entity. It supplies quality table grapes to specialty fruit retailers as well as to target markets in Europe, Americas and Asia.