"We started selling watermelons more than ten years ago. Our overall production volume reached about 30,000 ton per year. However, at the time we did not have our own brand. We had difficulty gaining a name for ourselves as there was no brand recognition. Afterwards we began to understand the importance of branding. A brand reflects product quality control and consumer understanding. A few years ago we established different brands for various fruits." This is according to Mr. Cai Qinyun, the CEO of Chengdu Zhongyi Fruits Co., Ltd. He recently shared his experience and ideas on building a brand in the Chinese fruit industry.
"Take watermelons as an example, we established the watermelon brand 'Tang beauty'. We sell four or five different kinds of watermelon under this brand name, including Qilin watermelons and Xisha watermelons. We established standardized requirements for plantation, selection, packing, and transport. As for publicity, we put our image in large-scale supermarkets in southwest China, even throughout the country, and we developed online sales channels too. The design of our brand is unique as well. Not only is the joyful human figure in our brand inviting, but the character for Tang looks a lot like the character for sweet. Our watermelons are 1-2 times sweeter than other watermelons. That is one of our strongest selling points."
"In addition to watermelons, we also have a brand called 'sunshine series'. This series includes the 'sunshine orange', which is a sweet 'rock candy' orange. After we established that brand, we engaged in strategic cooperation with retailers throughout the country. We developed a unified marketing campaign in our company and used retailers to spread this campaign in their region. Three years after we established this brand we saw that major retail platforms all featured the name 'sunshine orange', and our sales volume expanded by 30%. We expect the sales volume to continue growing this year," said CEO Cai.
"We focus on the formation of fruit brands. We try to figure out how the brand adds product value and stimulates the market. We have to tell the brand story in the right way, which means that we take the characteristics of products and their production areas into consideration. We emphasize how products stand out in terms of variety and flavor. That is how we show the added value of a fruit brand. We have many years of experience in fruit plantation and product selection. That is of immense value for brand formation."
When asked about challenges and opportunities, CEO Cai explained that "the price of watermelons is rather high this year. In some production areas the watermelons sold for more than 200 yuan [29.61 USD] per melon."
Imported fruit has faced numerous challenges in the last two years. When asked whether the obstacles for import fruit presented an opportunity for domestic fruits, CEO Cai replied, "many import fruit brands already do very well in the Chinese market. Domestic brands still need to strengthen their image. But the sales volume of domestic fruit does not solely depend on the opportunities for domestic fruit at the cost of import fruit. Domestic fruit requires constant improvement in terms of product control and understanding of consumer demands."
The headquarters of Chengdu Zhongyi Fruits are in Chengdu, Sichuan. The company has 11 factories throughout the country and owns various plantations. The company also has several registered brand names including 'Chengdu Jewel', or the 'Sunshine series' that includes oranges, grapes, and pomegranates, and of course 'Tang Beauty' watermelons. The company also represents various brands for import fruits including apples, cherries, and blueberries. They mainly sell their fruit in large-scale supermarkets, but some of their brands are available on e-commerce platforms as well.
For more information:
Cai Qinyun - CEO
Chengdu Zhongyi Fruits Co., Ltd.
Website: www.zhongyifruits.com
Tel.: +86 136 8835 2038