Abstract Deregulation of the South African fruit export industry in 1997 caused fragmentation in the supply chain. This led to significant inefficiencies and difficulty in responding to increasingly stringent legal and traderelated traceability requirements. Currently, the South African fruit export industry does not provide a sufficient level of traceability at supply chain level. The consumer packaged goods industry has developed e-commerce building blocks based on global standards. These building blocks offer automated traceability of fruit exports, as well as significant benefits impacting the bottom line, to companies of all sizes. The e-commerce building blocks also provide solutions to the two main challenges faced by the fresh produce supply chains, namely traceability requirements and the need for additional efficiencies. The e-commerce building blocks are available to the South African fruit export industry to enable traceability, as well as to provide significant efficiency benefits. It has been found that early adoption of the e-commerce building blocks will result in a strategic advantage over the southern hemisphere competitors and that automated traceability is feasible for the South African fruit export industry. This article describes the cohesiveness, willingness to participate and supportive thinking of representatives from the important fruit export industry in South Africa, which are necessary to create the critical mass for the implementation of such an automated traceability system.