Operations resumed at South African ports, where loading resumed after an evacuation of imports to make room.

“Operations are slowly resuming, in a day or two we will be back at full steam. “We are shipping fruit again, mainly blueberries and early stone fruit, as well as late avocados and the latest citrus,” says a shipper. "It has been a very stressful time."

A manager of a Cape Town cold store says loading has started trickling down to container and conventional ships at Cape Town's state-owned and private port terminals.

The strike began on October 6; the second union has now also accepted the three-year wage offer from the state port authority Transnet.

The impact of the build-up is felt most acutely in Cape Town with its EU- and UK-focused cargo of blueberries and avocados and Durban, where the last Valencias and late mandarins are yet to be shipped, while in the port of Port Elizabeth the buildup is not that great.

At the Cape Town Container Terminal (CTCT), a ship bound for the Far East has been in port for 24 days, at Pier 2 of the Durban Container Terminal (DCT), another has been anchored for 25 days.

Yesterday, 967 trucks passed through CTCT after two weeks of total stoppage, while more than 560 trucks with export cargo passed through DCT.

Export fruit re-imported due to quality problems

Many containers of avocado that had been waiting too long at the dock have been re-imported into South Africa.

The avocados will be sold on the local market where prices are good and the silver lining will be an extended avocado season for South African consumers.