Flourishing sales of Shaanxi winter dates in September have turned the fruit into a new market leader. Data shows that the trade volume of winter dates in Shaanxi and Shandong, two major production areas, decreased by 7.32%, while the trade value increased by 10.26%.
There are several reasons for the increase of trade value:
1. The winter dates arrived on the market early this year. The earliest winter dates arrived on the market in early March, which is much earlier than in previous years. However, the product quality of these early winter dates was less than ideal. The price of early-season winter dates was only 40 yuan [5.76 USD] per 0.5 kg, which was much lower than the 100 [14.39 USD] per 0.5 kg last year.
2. The surface area devoted to winter date plantation continues to increase. Market supply in August and September mainly came from Shaanxi. Shaanxi winter dates also managed to enter Jiaxing Fruit Market during the "Shaanxi Weinan Characteristic Agricultural Products Enter Jiaxing" link-up activity for production and retail.
3. Extreme weather conditions in August caused the product quality of Shaanxi winter dates to fall and the price dropped accordingly. Other than that, however, the price of Shaanxi winter dates has shown a stable increase, in particular in September when the price increased by around 19% in comparison with the same period last year. This also helped increase the overall trade value of Shaanxi winter dates.
Source: Jiaxing Fruit Market