China: Why the huge price gap between imported and domestic fruits?

In June 2018, there was a bumper harvest of Hubei Zaoyang peaches - but the more the peaches were harvested, the more money was lost. As the price plunged to five mao a pound, there were 60,000 jins unable to sell in the local area. In contrast, in Australia, since the peach picking season was in January-to-April, their peaches were able to go on the market in China in low season; even at about 10 Australian dollars per kilogram (about 49 yuan), they were still in short supply.

As of the end of March this year, Australia's nectarines, plums and other fruit exports to China approached 5,000 tons, as opposed to 1900 tons in the same period last year: an increase of 167%. (Source: Summerfruit Australia). There is a gap of nearly 100% between the 49 yuan a pound of Australian peaches and the 5 mao a pound of Zaoyang peaches, which is quite embarrassing.

Although the overall level of domestically produced fruits is not comparable to imported fruits, many fruit growers in some advantageous producing areas have accumulated considerable experience in planting; they have also been able to produce standard quality products on a large scale, and their quality is sometimes even higher than the imported fruits. So why are these high-quality fruits still unable to achieve greater influence in the market?

A big reason is that the quality of China's fresh industry supply chain is lagging behind. From the place of origin to the supermarket, the quality of the product gets greatly reduced during the intermediate circulation.

Source: Yunzhongyang