Ep 119: Cracking the Pistachio Opportunity - David Muller

Welcome to the Monocle Banking Podcast.

This week, as always, curated by Monocle Solutions.

And this week, we're going to Bishka in the Northern Cape, where a few farmers have gone a little nuts over pistachios.

There's something almost irresistible about a good Karoo story.

It's the harsh land and the stubborn people and long odds, and occasionally a crop that looks mad until it starts making perfect sense.

We're going to Pisgah in the Northern Cape, where David Muller and the Muller family group are trying to turn pistachios into South Africa's next serious agricultural export industry.

The backstory is absolutely remarkable.

In the 1990s, the IDC backed a major pistachio project in the region, but by 2011 it had effectively been written off.

But a handful of farmers, including the millers, refused to let the idea die.

Now Carew Pistachios, with its Desert Emerald brand, is looking at a market being reshaped by some of the geopolitics that we see in the Middle East.

being reshaped by climate, by supply chain diversification and surging demand globally, and not least from the now famous Dubai chocolate craze.

From just 20 tonnes last year, the ambition is to scale towards as much as 60,000 tonnes by the end of next decade, which would put South Africa in serious company globally.

David Muller joins us now on the Monocle Banking Podcast from Muller Family Group in Priska.

David, before we get into global supply chains and export economics, just take us back to the beginning.

What does a Muller family pistachio story in Pliska actually look like? How did this become more than just an interesting farming experiment for you?