Latest news with #Paarl
Zawya
13 hours ago
- Business
- Zawya
From farm to table: How ButtaNutt is reshaping South Africa's food landscape?
The global shift towards plant-based foods is reshaping consumer habits, and in South Africa, ButtaNutt has emerged as a notable player in this growing space. Founded in 2013 by Antoine van Heerden, the business began with macadamias from his family's farm and has maintained a strong focus on local sourcing and clean, simple ingredients. Antoine van Heerden, Founder, ButtaNutt Over the past year, ButtaNutt has hit key milestones — commissioning South Africa's first purpose-built UHT plant for plant-based milks in Paarl and securing a 54% equity investment from PSG Group in May 2025. In this Q&A, van Heerden unpacks how ButtaNutt's growth is tied to local agriculture, from long-term farm partnerships to shifting crop demand— and how the company sees its role in building a more sustainable, resilient food system. ButtaNutt's story began with macadamias from your parents' farm in Mpumalanga. In what ways did that farming background shape your approach to sourcing and product innovation? Growing up with access to local produce, especially macadamias from my parents' farm, instilled the importance of using what is abundant and local. This approach allows us to benefit from shorter lead times, more stable pricing, and ultimately fresher products for our customers. It has shaped our commitment to source ingredients that are both sustainable and reliably available, reducing our dependence on long, complex supply chains. Which South African farms or regions currently supply your core ingredients like nuts, oats, and coconuts — and what kind of impact do these partnerships have on local agri communities? Our macadamias primarily come from the Lowveld in Mpumalanga and parts of KwaZulu-Natal. Almonds are sourced from Western Cape areas such as Paarl, Robertson, and the Klein Karoo. Pecans and peanuts come from the Northern Cape, while oats are sourced from the Overberg and Swartland regions. Although our coconuts are currently imported, we're exploring opportunities to source them locally from Mozambique to support regional agriculture. These partnerships help to strengthen local farming communities by providing stable demand and encouraging investment in quality and capacity. As the business scaled up its plant-based range, what have been some of the key agricultural challenges and supply opportunities along the way? Any particular crops seeing noticeable growth off the back of your product demand? Agricultural challenges such as drought and hail damage have caused supply volatility and price fluctuations in some crops. For example, almond pricing is heavily influenced by California markets and exchange rates, which adds complexity. Despite this, South Africa is among the world's largest macadamia exporters, but our volumes remain relatively small within that market. Notably, macadamia plantings have increased significantly in recent years, which is promising. Oats represent perhaps our biggest growth opportunity; volumes have increased significantly this year, approaching 1,000 metric tonnes. We see exciting potential in establishing more direct relationships with farmers to secure a sustainable and scalable supply. The commissioning of your UHT plant in Paarl marked a major milestone. How has this facility influenced local value chains or opened new doors for South African farmers? The UHT plant has allowed us to convert to using local oats and source directly from farms, improving traceability and local impact. This year, we began buying from Paarl farmers for the first time. The value distributed to our local suppliers has increased by approximately 50% over the past year, correlating with a 50% growth in our sales. Investing in local processing can significantly boost value retention and economic benefit for regional agricultural communities. With fresh backing from PSG Group and a growing product portfolio, where do you see ButtaNutt's future demand potentially shifting or growing agricultural supply in South Africa? We anticipate strong growth in our locally produced high-oleic peanut butter, which aligns with health trends. Our nut milks and oat milk lines continue to expand robustly. Additionally, we plan to launch new ready-to-drink plant-based products that emphasise high protein content and nutrient fortification, which will likely increase demand for diverse local crops and create new opportunities for farmers. For young entrepreneurs looking to build businesses around adding value to local farm produce, what lessons from your journey would you pass on? Stay close to your local farmers and producers—that's where the real opportunity lies. Building trust and relationships takes time, but working with local partners is far easier to manage than dealing with suppliers overseas. South Africa produces high-quality yet affordable agricultural products that are competitive both domestically and internationally, so leverage this strength. Given your interest in health, wellness, and growing food at home, how do you see plant-based eating contributing to more sustainable and resilient agricultural systems in South Africa? I believe being close to your food source will become increasingly important. Food security is delicate, and farmers have long been pressured by pesticide and herbicide manufacturers selling chemical solutions as fixes. The industry urgently needs a reset and a rethink—a transition is already underway, driven by consumer demand and rising pesticide costs. I hope that more consumers will ask harder questions about what they consume and feed their children. With autoimmune diseases on the rise and growing evidence linking diet to health, our agricultural systems and food choices must change to support more sustainable, healthful outcomes. 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The Herald
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald
Names such as Conqueror, Tenacious, Fortitude and Longevity, say it all
How often are we told when we are struggling that tough times build character, that one needs to 'dig deep' to find the inner strength to conquer adversity? If the Perdeberg vineyard and cellar teams were the type to talk to plants, I'd bet that's what they'd be whispering daily to their dry land vineyards at the foot of the Paardeberg mountain in Paarl. Most of the winery's more than 3,000ha of vineyards in Paarl and over the mountain in the Swartland are dry land, or unirrigated, and the cream of the crop is found in the premium Dry Land Collection, showcasing the distinctive character that develops when vines overcome difficult growing conditions. Watered only by rainfall, in a fairly dry region, the vines must literally dig deep to establish themselves and find groundwater. The combination of the testing terroir and having survived decades of nature's cycles — some of the vines for the Dry Land Collection are more than 35 years old, with certified heritage status — delivers rewards in small berries with exceptional concentration of flavour and colour, producing wines of complexity and depth, balanced with freshness. No wonder then that wines in the Perdeberg Dry Land Collection have names like Conqueror (cabernet sauvignon), Resolve (pinotage), Tenacious (shiraz), and the chenin blanc dessert wines Fortitude and Longevity. Two of the Dry Land Collection wines recently topped the 2025 Winemag Prescient Chenin Blanc & Cape White Blend Report, with the 2024 Courageous Barrel Fermented Chenin Blanc named best chenin blanc and Rossouw's Heritage 2023 the top-scoring Cape white blend. For its passion for conserving and working with its heritage vines in wines like these, Perdeberg won the Old Vine Producer trophy at the International Wine & Spirits Competition in 2024. Their highlighting of the potential of older vines and the character produced from dry land vineyards no doubt also contributed to Perdeberg being named 2024 Producer Cellar of the Year in UK Master of Wine Tim Atkin's respected annual SA Special Report. Perdeberg cellar master Albertus Louw explains that grapes for the Dry Land Collection wines are selected from individual vines in specific vineyards, and made in a new world style with ample fruit and structure. For those matured in oak, the focus is on seamless integration of fruit and wood so that oak influence is subtle and the wines pleasurably drinkable on their own on release, but also great with food, and ageable. This comes through clearly in two of the Dry Land Collection white wines tasted recently, both of which kept the free-run juice in contact with the skins for a couple of hours after pressing and were matured on the yeasty lees in barrel to varying extents — the winemaking techniques creating wines with texture and complexity finely balanced with clean fruit purity and fresh acidity. Courageous Barrel-Fermented Chenin Blanc 2024 (R200), aged in mostly older oak barrels for 11 months, shows how chenin's typical crunchy pineapple shifts when the wine is wooded to a mellower, deeper fruit, with caramelised edges to the sweetness, as if it's been grilled on a cast iron pan or braai with a sprinkling of brown sugar. (I've done this, it's delicious!) Opening with heady aromas of frangipani, citrus, pear and pineapple, the wine moves into flavours of citrus, lychee and vanilla, honey and nuts, the ripe golden yellow notes lifted by zesty citrus and the crunch of a granny smith apple, with clean acidity and crisp finish. Try it with a mild but aromatic chicken curry. Perdeberg Dry Land Collection Rossouw's Heritage 2023 (R200) makes one question why white blends are such a tough sell to SA consumers, because it delivers the qualities that we love in red blends — the balance and complexity, the interplay of flavours, structure and texture that comes from uniting the distinct qualities of different grapes in one happy marriage. This is a blend of chenin blanc (63%), with grenache blanc, verdelho and viognier in roughly equal shares, with half the blend matured in oak for 10 months followed by six months to mature and integrate in bottle. Lightly fragrant with citrus, lychee, pears and floral notes that move into the palate, rounded out with passion fruit and vanilla, the flavours unfurl in layers with each sip, with clean freshness and purity of flavour. The wine is crisp and lively, but with depth, body and texture; doesn't demand food but would be great with grilled fish, braaied chicken or a lightly creamy pasta dish. If struggle is character-building, long may it continue. The Herald
News24
03-06-2025
- General
- News24
Body found in dam during search for missing Western Cape teen
While searching for a missing 16-year-old girl on Monday, Western Cape police officers recovered a body from a dam in Paarl. According to police spokesperson Warrant Officer Joseph Swartbooi, the body has not been identified. 'An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death. Paarl police registered a murder for further investigation. The suspects are yet to be arrested,' he said. The discovery was made during a community-led search for Chanelle Plaatjies, who was last seen on 14 May. Rural and Farmworkers and Development Organisation spokesperson Billy Claasen believes the body, which was found near the Allandale Correctional Centre, could be that of the missing teen. But Swartbooi said: 'The circumstances surrounding the missing persons enquiry registered with Paarl East police on Wednesday for further investigation are still under investigation.' In February, the body of 17-year-old Ongeziwe Kamlana was found burnt beyond recognition in Kuils River. A 28-year-old man was arrested in connection with her murder The Gugulethu matric pupil's body was found two weeks after she was reported missing by her mother. She was last seen on her way home from extra classes at Fezeka Secondary School on 17 February.
The Guardian
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Joe Root's greatness is shining anew in the evening of his white-ball career
The winning moment is perfect. Perfect in concept, in balance, in execution, in placement, in flourish. The ball disappears through mid-on, and before it has even reached the boundary the lid is off and the smile is unsheathed, and for some reason it matters a great deal that the stroke to complete a towering one-day chase of 309 is not a wallop or a swipe, but an artful on-drive for four. But then for all his brilliance, there has always been a pleasingly jarring quality to Root in limited‑overs cricket, even a kind of quiet defiance. His match‑winning 166 against the West Indies on Sunday was perhaps his greatest white-ball innings, but above all it was simply a Joe Root innings, all gentle nudges and classical drives, timing over power, manoeuvrability over muscularity, a triumph of pure talent. My favourite bit of a Root white-ball innings is when he hits a six. Which he actually does quite a lot – 53 times in one-day internationals, more than Alex Hales, narrative fans – but for some reason never fails to tickle him. As if this wasn't really supposed to happen, as if he's just done something terribly naughty, and his big daft face breaks out into a big daft grin, the grin of an auntie who has just said 'shit' at the Christmas dinner table. 'Ultimately, you're playing a game of cricket,' Root said a few months ago in an interview with ESPNCricinfo, during a largely unheralded stint with the Paarl Royals Twenty20 franchise. 'Most of the basic things within the game are exactly the same. You've just got less time to figure it out.' And for some reason Root has always felt the need to justify his presence in the white-ball game, has always been aware on some level of his outsider status. Which for a player who was the top scorer in a winning World Cup side, who was responsible for one of the all-time great Twenty20 knocks for England (against South Africa in 2016), who averages almost 50 in 50-over cricket and has now overtaken Eoin Morgan as his country's leading ODI run-scorer, feels faintly absurd. But the sense of impostor syndrome goes back years. In 2018, at the very height of his powers, he entered the Indian Premier League auction for the first time and went unsold. Later that summer he was dropped from the T20 side for the first time. Then came the long slow retreat: just 19 ODIs between the 2019 and 2023 World Cups, during which he averaged 28. In 2024 he did not play a single white-ball game for England. There is no real need for revisionism here. Between 2019 and 2023 Root was simply not playing enough good white-ball cricket to justify his place, his spells in the side too fitful to be of any use. All the same it speaks volumes of the man that, as he put it on Sunday night, he felt 'guilt' at not being able to help Jos Buttler more. 'I almost felt guilty that I wasn't there for him throughout a lot of his tenure,' he said. To briefly refresh our memories: this was a period during which Root was dealing with the Test captaincy, multiple Ashes series, Covid bubbles, Covid isolation, Covid fatigue, the fallout from a seismic racism scandal that engulfed not just his county but his entire sport, and an era of English cricket in which red ball was simply not the priority, an atrophying side in which he was basically the only guy capable of scoring runs. Memo to Joe, if you're reading: genuinely, don't worry about it. You did good. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Even so, what is undeniable is that during those years of white-ball recession the game bounded on without him. The supremacy of 360-degree power hitting, soaring scoring rates and extreme specialism threatened to leave him behind. Now aged 34, he probably has to make peace with the fact that unlike his Big Four counterparts – Steve Smith, Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson – he will make little to no imprint in the sport's most popular and culturally dominant format. Of what use, then, were the years of toil and sacrifice, slogging his guts out for a failing team in a failing format? What was it all for? Was he ultimately cricket's equivalent of Stevens the butler in The Remains of the Day, dutifully giving over his life in service of a doomed, ignoble ideal? Will it ever be possible again to achieve greatness in this sport without genetic advantages and brute strength? I want to believe it's possible. I want to believe that for all the cultural entropy, for all the schedule fragmentation, for all the greed and confusion, this is all still cricket, that pure talent can still conquer. I love that Jasprit Bumrah still wants to play all formats, that Harry Brook does, that Rashid Khan does. I love that Sikandar Raza flew straight from a Test match in Nottingham to a Pakistan Super League final in Lahore, that each game mattered so much that he had to do both. I love that Root is 34 but still wants to learn and grow, that one of the most ridiculously talented cricketers of my lifetime still has worlds he wants to conquer, parts he's still trying to figure out. Maybe the evening really is the best part of the day. There's a clarity, a sense of purpose. It's a bat, a ball, stumps and a field. The basic game is the same. He's just got less time to figure it out.
The Herald
03-06-2025
- Health
- The Herald
Ex-warder wins damages claim after son drowns at house where Madiba spent last part of prison term
They argued the employees failed to lock and secure the premises. The parents said they also failed to prohibit young children from entering the premises and to cover the pool with appropriate material to prohibit young children from falling in. They told the court the historic property's gates were hardly locked and that children from a neighbouring farm and the neighbourhood wandered inside and swam in the pool at the back of the property. The parents and three witnesses testified about lax security at the house. The mother testified that at the time of the incident, they lived with their three sons — about 500m from the Mandela house — in a home provided by the department. She said about six families lived down the road from the iconic house. The mother lived on the property for eight years between 2004 and 2012. 'She testified that anyone could move freely through the fence and that she had never observed any security or security post at the fence area bordering the prison property on which the Mandela house is situated,' the judgment reads. The mother told the court she was asleep at home on August 13 2010 when one of her sons ran inside 'shouting' that her baby had 'drowned'. She walked out and found the child 'lying on the ground outside the house on the grass'. 'He was soaking wet and not conscious. She tried cardiopulmonary resuscitation [CPR] on him but he was just lying there, lifeless,' the judgment reads. The child was rushed to the Paarl Medi-Clinic where a doctor told her he 'had died'. She testified that her then husband 'was also extremely distressed and disturbed at the time and was running up and down in a very distressed and agitated state'. 'She stated that her whole life changed after the drowning of her son ... She suffered severely psychologically and was diagnosed with depression,' the judgment reads. 'Her marriage suffered terribly as [her husband] was always drinking after the incident and there was constant blaming and fighting in their relationship.' The father testified he had worked for the department for 18 years when he resigned in August 2014. 'He suffered memory loss and would sometimes have fits at night. He had already been under psychiatric treatment for bipolar disorder before [the child's] death and his symptoms became worse after that,' the judgment reads. The minister argued that at the time of the incident, the property and swimming pool were under the control of a building contractor doing renovations and repairs to the pool. However, the minister did not pursue the argument during the trial. The minister also argued that the public was required to get permission from the department to enter the property. He said the parents 'did not obtain such authorisation and their son, so the defendants plead, had no authority to enter the premises, which includes the swimming pool'. But the court ruled in favour of the parents. 'I hold that the minister is liable for the agreed or proven damages suffered by the plaintiffs following the drowning of [the child] at the Drakenstein Correctional Centre on August 13 2010,' the judgment reads. The judgment effectively holds the correctional services minister liable for the 'agreed or proven damages' suffered by the parents. The minister was ordered to pay the parents' legal costs. TimesLIVE
