A bunch of Japanese grapes called "Romantic Ruby" was recently auctioned for a sky-high price of 73,000 yuan. It has 30 grapes on the string and each grape was worth 2433 yuan, which made people exclaim" Is the grape still eatable?"
And it's not only grapes - in recent years, Japanese beef and rice have also fetched outrageous prices. People are starting to ask - "Are agricultural products with a Japanese label really worth so much?"
To investigate the synergy of publicity and production costs
According to reports from the Ishikawa County branch of the National Agricultural Federation, the "Romantic Ruby" is a brand new species and took 14 years to develop. The sugar content is above 18 degrees and each string weighs no less than 350 grams. Each grape is as big as a golf ball and the skin color is redder than the ordinary ones. The weight of each grape has to reach 20 grams or more before shipment.
Bin Cao, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences of
rural development, said "there is an auction of agricultural goods in Japan every year, especially when a new product comes out. This is a clever business model, but also serves to promote the produce".
Wuji Chao, President of the Chinese Grape Association, expressed similar views, "the so-called 'sky-high grape' was basically a speculation as the advent of every new species needs to attract people's attention. Not only grapes, Japan also hyped rice, beef and others. Moreover, this phenomenon is not only Japanese, China does it as well." Chao said.
In Chao's opinion, in addition to auction speculation, there was another reason for the crazy price. Firstly, the market is catering to high-end consumers, so growers are always looking for something new to differentiate their product and stimulate demand. Secondly labour and packaging costs are very high in Japan, which all contributed to the "sky-high price".
"The patent protection in Japan is very strong and unauthorized use will be subject to heavy penalties after the development of a new species; a very sound mechanism to protect the interests of developers. Because of this there are a lot of people who continue to invest in the development of original varieties and they improve all the time. However, at present, China's domestic mechanism is not mature enough." Bin Cao added.