China: Price is determined by fruit quality

"We purchase all kinds of fruits from excellent domestic and international production sites. We have our own brands, such as 23 degrees north Hami melons, and Jiu Tai durian, and products under the brands of their own suppliers. We mainly use traditional sales channels to sell our products to distribution markets, sales points, and supermarkets in first and second tier cities in China. Currently, fruits are imported through the ports of Shenzhen, Shanghai and Xiamen. Considering the shipping time's stability, we are considering to import through the port of Hong Kong in the future."

"At the moment, our sales volume of imported fruits is 15%-20% of the total sales volume. We have fruits like apples, bananas, durian, dragon fruit, and oranges. The product quality determines the price. To control the product quality, after selecting a product, we send a delegation of experts to the production site, packaging site and assembly line for inspection. Afterwards, we will formulate export standards, based on the factory's characteristics and the demand for the product."

"In the past few years, many fruit companies in China started to do branding. They also started to focus on the food safety of products. However, the differences in quality between domestic fruits and imported fruits remain. This is mainly because, on the one hand, China has quite a lot of water, air and soil pollution, so farmers keep using many pesticides in the production process, which will influence the product quality. On the other hand, the European Union keeps raising its auditing standards for fruit quality. Moreover, Chinese farmers still have a lot of progress to make in improving areas like packaging, and keeping produce fresh after picking them."

"Because the quality of life is getting better, and because people are becoming more aware of food safety, in the past few years, the consumers' demand for imported fruit has been rising constantly. This speeds up the fruit import to China. Holding our company spirit of "product quality, health, brand, and safety", we are looking for suppliers of excellent fruit all over the world, so we can provide our customers with even better products."

Henry Wang