China: Chilean cherry prices fall - kiwis hit by local fruit harvest

The Dole Food Company began Chilean cherry sales last week. From then on, the first market price has continued to drop. This week its price has adjusted from over 1,000 Yuan to around 7 or 8 hundred Yuan. In the future more fruit charter flights are expected to arrive in China from abroad, which impacted to a certain extent the cherry price.

This week opens for the market season of domestic kiwi, and its taste & look are both very good. More importantly, its market price is much lower than imported ones. For example, currently in level one wholesale markets the Cuixiang kiwi is sold at around 40 Yuan, while the gold kiwi is sold for between 30 to 40 Yuan, even the most pricey red kiwi is priced at around 50 Yuan. Compared with imported ones, their prices are very attractive and this, to a certain extent, slowed down the sales volume of imported kiwi. Moreover, in recent years the domestic kiwis have improved their quality and packaging thanks to the improvement of kiwi plantation and kiwi selection technology, and they have gradually started to enter the mid to high end consumer markets, though there is still some way to go to compete with New Zealand Zespri kiwi in terms of marketing and promotion.

The same thing has happened to the famous french apple brand, blue whale. Due to competition from domestic, quality fruits, their sales were lower than expected.

Judging by the import market this week, more impacts that domestic quality fruits bring to imported counterparts can be seen. For imported fruits, the Chinese market has huge potential, but the market is more demanding on the product quality, packaging and price position, therefore there is still a long way to go in order to develop this market.