Disney fruit falls in Chinese customers' good graces

'Shanghai Nong Fu Fruit Corporation is a large fruit importing company that was founded in 1990. After 30 years of our efforts, we have come into the posession of a mature operations system and a solid customer base with which we have worked together for a long time. Having a deep understanding of quality is key, in order to strictly monitor the quality of imported fruits. With regard to merchandise, before the production season starts, our group our group will carry out inspections of the packaging plant of the original source and the orchards. Furthermore, we have incorporated specialized people in charge of our production plants overseas, so we can monitor the quality of our dispatched products throughout the whole process and send back correct information to our producers. Our firm bought farms in northern Chiang Mai in Thailand in 2013, where we established the subsidiary 'Calm and Peaceful Forest, Llc'. We have constructed a modernized fruit processing plant which will mainly deal in dragon eye fruit, durians, products from mangosteen and process them appropriately. Also, in 2017 we were honored with the 'Outstanding Asian brand name' award." 

"At the present stage, 50% of our imported fruits come from the west, and the other 50% comes from South East Asia. Among these, ctirus products from Spain, South Africa and Egypt sell especially well in China. This is mainly because they benefit from the long-term stable demand in the high-end market and from the market operations our firm carries out from production to end point. In 2017 our company imported more than 600 crates of Egyptian oranges alone, which caused us to become a market benchmark overnight. In addition, cherries from Washington also have always been acknowledged by the masses. Although the majority of cherries this year has a sour taste and thus sell rather slowly, the price for fruits with a good taste and good quality has still remained high."

"In terms of sales channels, we mainly distinguish between traditional wholesale markets and high-end channels. Traditional sales channels are mostly wholesale markets in first, second and tier cities in China, while high-end channels happen through cooperations with large supermarkets, chain retailers and food and beverage caterers like Pagoda, Bailian Group, FreshFresh, Parkson and others that help us to bring our fresh fruit directly from the producers to the hands' of high-end consumers. Since 2016 until now, we have established almost 400 more chain stores for our group. Moreover, due to the private online commercial platform that our company established in Guangzhou, and through the cooperations with T-Mall and other large online selling platforms, we will sell fruit to all places and all countries. To sum it up, 50% of our gross sales are realized by our both our traditional market channels and our direct channels to the high-end customers."

"After having received the authorization to act as the exclusive representative of Disney for fresh fruit and dried fruit on the Chinese market in 2015, Shanghai Nong Fu has continously been developing new fruit products for the Disney trademark for the past two years, including coconuts from Thailand, blueberries and avocados frmo Peru, Grapes from Australia, and so on. We plan to introduce cherries from Chile and kiwis from France this year. We hope to take more high quality products from all across the world and introduce them in China, we also hope to work together with companies that share these intentions so we can jointly push this brand to the high-end customer market."

"Currently, on the South East Asian market, we are creating two products. The first one is a healthy dragon eye fruit from Thailand, which originates from a partnership with the provincial governmental department for agricultural industry of Guangdong province. We have our own R&D facility in Thailand of which its aim is to transfer the healthy Thai dragon eye fruit to the consumers' hands and allow them to taste healthier and safer products. The other product is Malaysian durian fruit which we sell under our own brand. This brand is also very well known in the market, but in the future we will incessantly open markets for fresh and frozen durians." 

"Besides fresh fruit, we are also actively developing dried fruit from Disney, including mainly frozen Golden Pillow durians, frozen jackfruit, frozen figs and frozen mangoes. In the wake of the MId-Autumn Festival and the National Celebration day, and even the Lunar New Year and more following holidays, we will also promote Disney products in small packages, so we can meet the demand of our consumers better."

Zhao Xianling (Foreign Trade manager)

 www.nffruits.com

Telephone number: +86 136 6153 9405

E-mail address: lisa.zhao@nffruits.cn