“China also has a price ceiling for Conference pears”

On Friday, the first Dutch Conference pears will once again be shipped to China. Although the Chinese market has been open for Dutch pears for four years now, performances fluctuated in recent years. Yet Randy Dijksman of Jaguar the Fresh Company has noticed demand increasing. “When the China protocol had just come into effect, there was quite a bit of interest among fruit growers to join, but because of the bad performances of exporters, that interest decreased again. In fact, there is only a select group of companies that are still seriously exporting, and these companies report fair results. Trust has to slowly be regained again. Fortunately, we’re making strides in this, and growers are slowly getting more interested again in joining the protocol. That’s necessary, because if we want to continue entering the Chinese market in the long term, we need the commitment of growers.”

As a reason for the disappointing performance of the Dutch exporters overall, Randy mentions the generalising expectations about the Chinese market. “China is an enormous market, but one that still has to be completely developed. It definitely has potential, because the Chinese eat a lot of top fruit, but they don’t know the Conference pear yet. The online market in China is also large, much larger than in Europe, but we Dutch exporters shouldn’t entertain the illusion we’ll start selling containers of pears online at this stage. A lot of product ended up on the wholesaler’s market in recent years because of this, and that wasn’t great for prices. Fortunately, we’re now seeing increasing interest from China. I therefore have much respect for our colleagues from the Belgische Fruit Veiling that did a great job introducing the Conference pears to the Chinese market under the Truval brand. In that respect, the Belgians are doing better because of the cooperatives. The Netherlands could definitely gain a bit of ground in that field.”

Jaguar has been active on the Chinese market for some years now, and they have a completely independent company with their Chinese branch Leopard Fruit Trading. “This way, we provide a good combination of retail and wholesalers in a number of Chinese regions. I’m convinced this mix is necessary. The fruit is in transport for a month, and this means you need a safety net, because it’s an illusion if you think you can focus 100% on retail,” Randy says. Leopard Fruit Trading is actively developing new concepts in cooperation with retailers. “This could be in the field of marketing and packaging, but it always has to be interesting for the Chinese market. That’s why we work with a Chinese agency. For now, the packaging for Conference pears supplied in China are all still well-known Dutch packaging, but we have to reverse roles, because the Chinese might not be waiting for that at all.”

Exporters are facing a challenge because of the smaller pears in the Netherlands. “China prefers large sizes. We therefore have to make sure we sell size 60, because sizes below that have never been interesting to China,” Randy says. The idea that pears in China always have to have higher yields than on the European market is a misconception, according to him. “Naturally a premium quality deserves a premium price, but China also appears to have a price ceiling. I often compare it to New Zealand apples in Europe, they also have to have about the same yield every year. We have the same price range in China. When the pears are expensive in Europe, prices are more likely to drop towards the Chinese level.”