Anmari Kriegler

“I’m from Ceres. I grew up among apples,” says Anmari Kriegler. “My parents work for Dutoit Agri, and my grandfather farmed with grapevines in the Breë River region. At one stage, I considered becoming a winemaker.”

Serendipitously, Kriegler’s mother spotted an article on horticulture as a career in Stellenbosch University’s alumni magazine. Kriegler was intrigued. “I read up about it, and shadowed horticulturists,” she says. “What struck me was that they all loved what they do, and find their work rewarding.”

She completed her BScAgric with Horticulture and Plant Pathology in 2020 and stayed at Stellenbosch University for an MSc. She studied stepwise cooling and CO₂ concentrations during storage on internal browning in Fuji.

According to Kriegler, the postharvest module presented by Dr Elke Crouch, Postharvest Physiology Research Chair in Deciduous Fruit in the Department of Horticultural Science, was one reason she picked a postharvest project. Another reason was her father’s involvement with cold storage and postharvest handling of fruit.

Dr Anél Botes, Kriegler’s supervisor, recounts how Kriegler was thrown in at the deep end. Her fruit samples arrived, and she had to run real-time physiological analyses, the day after she started her MSc. But Kriegler kept her head above water, graduating at the end of 2023.

While writing up her MSc, Kriegler accepted a position at Capespan, where she is the technical manager for pome fruit. “I’ve discovered that I like solving problems,” she says. “With preharvest, you try to prevent problems. With postharvest, the problem is there, so you have to manage it.”

Kriegler has no regrets about joining the deciduous fruit industry. “I’m grateful for all the people lending a hand on this journey,” she affirms. “This is an incredible industry.”