Chinese honey pomelo officially entered the market this year in late July. The overall production volume declined by 10%-15% this year because production areas suffered from drought during the blossom season. However, the product quality of pomelo is excellent this year. Mr. Wen, spokesperson for a specialized honey pomelo export company Pinghe County Lipeng Fruit Industry Co., Ltd., recently talked about current conditions in honey pomelo production areas and predictions for the future of the honey pomelo export market.
"The price of shipping has been on the rise since last year. In August last year the cost of shipping a container from China to Europe was around 11,000-13,000 USD. The commercial value of honey pomelo is rather low, and the high shipping cost will undoubtedly have an impact on the price of honey pomelo. In addition, consumer demand has taken a hit from the ongoing pandemic. In many overseas markets consumer demand is not strong enough to absorb the higher cost price," said manager Wen. "It will take some time before overseas consumer demand is completely recovered. That will certainly have a positive effect on our sales of honey pomelo in overseas markets."
"In the end, this will be another difficult year for everyone in the honey pomelo industry, from planters and exporters to wholesale dealers and retailers. Everyone faces an enormous challenge," said manager Wen. "Under normal circumstances almost 60% of our production volume are exported. This year we had to adjust our strategy and focus on the domestic market instead."
Pinghe County Lipeng Fruit Industry is a specialized honey pomelo export company from Pinghe in Fujian. The company team works hard to continuously improve the fruit product and the packaging. "One of the trends we can see in this market is that consumers have increasingly high requirements for fruit packaging. They express a desire to reduce the use of plastic. Some news in the industry suggests that will soon ban all plastic packaging, but there are already many clients who have this requirement to reduce the use of plastic in packaging," said manager Wen.
"Honey pomelo in the domestic market and in the export market are all packaged in red plastic netting with a colorful ribbon. These two are only decorative. We advice our clients to cancel the netting and the ribbon. However, the honey pomelo is also packaged in a plastic membrane itself, and this helps to protect the fruit from decay and insects. This plastic membrane is absolutely necessary until we have been able to develop more advanced packaging methods. We are always in discussion with clients about ways to improve the sustainability of our packaging methods," said manager Wen. "We also hope to develop packaging that is environmentally friendly and beautiful, so that we can raise the added value of our honey pomelo."
Pinghe County Lipeng Fruit Industry owns a pomelo plantation of around 120 hectares in Pinghe county, Fujian. All their pomelo are GAP certified. "We work hard to improve the product quality of our pomelo, from plantation management to post-harvest processing and storage, as well as the selection of packaging. We maintain the highest standards throughout the entire process. We keep the pomelo fresh in storage so that when market supply declines, we are still able to guarantee a supply of fresh honey pomelo to our clients."
For more information:
Wen Mindong - Manager
Pinghe County Lipeng Fruit Industry Co., Ltd.
Tel.: +86 592 5314 087
Tel.: +86 189 6511 5427
Website: www.flourishfruits.com
E-mail: wmd@flourishfruits.com