As the Spring Festival approaches, the fruit consumption market begins to "pick up", and consumers buy fruits in supermarkets. Our reporter Wang Xiaochuan photo
Beginning of spring has passed, and the breeze is beginning to bring some warmth.
But for the vast majority of fruit people, this "winter" is cold and long, and it is really a bit difficult.
Cherry, once the "pearl of fruit industry", has been sold from the past to today’s ten pounds of postage, and has already stepped down from the altar. The "freedom of cherries", which was once pursued hard, now seems like telling a cold joke to the fruit industry.
It’s not just cherries that are sad.
Domestic fruits, led by citrus, are also in a difficult position to support. From January to December 2020, the average wholesale price of bulk fruits monitored by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs decreased by 9.8% compared with 2019. Some merchants feel more directly, "the price of fruit has dropped by at least 30% year-on-year".
What is even more helpless is that even if the price has been "discounted", the volume of fruit still does not improve.
The China Fruit Circulation Association recently issued the "Initiative on Doing a Good Job in Current Fruit Sales", calling on the whole industry to actively respond to the crisis and spend the cold winter together.
The sudden "cold" and "freezing" made people in the fruit industry a little confused. The price that can’t be raised, the fruit that can’t be sold, the warehouse piled up like a mountain, and the fruit industry people are waiting for the arrival of spring.
An expanding orchard
Guangxi Lipu Sugar Orange is a well-known regional public brand of citrus. In 2016, when the reporter went to Guangxi for an interview, an orange farmer joked: "The Bureau of Industry and Commerce of the Finance Bureau, it is better for me to go home and plant sugar oranges!"
Now, it seems that it is the last glory of sugar orange.
In 2016-2017, the average price of sugar oranges in Guangxi once reached a high of 12.6 yuan per kilogram, and countless fruit farmers lived in the "Citrus House" by relying on their 10 acres of citrus orchards.
The sudden epidemic in 2020 poured cold water on the head of sugar orange. Fruit merchants can’t get in, fruits can’t get out, and there are not a few citrus orchards that have been abandoned.
The accident that was regarded by many people at that time was repeated again this year. Just a month ago, the average price of sugar oranges in Guangxi hit a deep pit in 1.2 yuan per catty. This price is even lower than the input cost of fruit farmers.
For fruit farmers, it is not important to pick the fruit or not, which is doomed to be a loss.
This ending was actually buried as early as a few years ago when sugar oranges were expensive. The price of citrus is soaring, and the industrial and commercial capital with a keen sense of smell is coming into the "orange". Guilin and other sugar oranges are planted in big markets, and fruit farmers even compete to transfer land to other markets. Planting sugar oranges is like planting a cash cow.
Zhao Junyi, chief fruit analyst of the agricultural products market analysis and early warning team of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, told the reporter that the area and output of citrus have been increasing continuously in recent years. In 2018, citrus output surpassed apples to become the largest fruit raw product category in China, and in 2019, citrus output accounted for 24.1% of the total output of garden fruits in China.
The continuous expansion of orchards will inevitably bring high supply. Citrus is not resistant to storage, so it is inevitable that "price stampede" will occur when it is listed centrally.
This cold winter in the fruit industry, when the new citrus season came on the market in November last year, has already begun to show signs. Wuming Wogan, Lipu Sugar Orange and other popular "star" fruits in the past are not only unsatisfactory in price, but also worrying in sales volume. Only when they are listed can they not be sold. Fruit farmers have to beg the buyers to take as many goods as possible.
Chen Yucheng, head of Sihui Cuitian Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd. in Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province, said frankly: "The pressure this year is particularly great. Some time ago, due to the influence of the cold wave, it was difficult to sell in the north. Coupled with the epidemic situation and the low price of foreign fruits, the confidence that fruit farmers had just stabilized was somewhat shaken. "
The pressure of continuous loss is transmitted to fruit quality through fruit farmers. A person in charge of Guangxi Fruit Technical Guidance Station told the reporter that due to the poor market, the willingness of growers to invest has been greatly reduced, and the investment in organic fertilizer and film mulching has decreased accordingly, which has led to the decline of fruit quality, further affecting sales and forming a vicious circle.
Fruits piled up in the warehouse
It’s not just fruit farmers who are suffering from the cold winter. The pressure on fruit dealers may be even greater.
According to the data of Guangxi agricultural products production and marketing price monitoring and early warning system, on February 5th, the origin price of sugar orange was higher than the wholesale price per kilogram in 0.3 yuan. It is hard to imagine that the wholesale price is upside down with the origin price in any industry.
There are also traditional bulk fruits such as apples and pears on sale. In the 2020 crop season, the national apple output is about 41 million tons, and it still maintains a relatively stable supply. Looking at the whole year, the prices of Fuji apples and Yali pears dropped by 28% and 28% respectively compared with the previous year.
"The sales situation is not ideal. Some dealers sell at a loss of 50 cents per catty. After all, it will cost more to continue to put it in the cold storage." Lu Fangxiao, president of China Fruit Circulation Association, said.
However, it is difficult to reverse the situation that the inventory of cold storage continues to be high. It is reported that about 11 million tons of apples will be stored in the cold storage in 2020, an increase of 8% year-on-year, and a record high.
Many dealers spent a lot of money on Apple last year, but this year they are trapped by Apple. The strong market during the new listing of apples in 2020 attracted many pear merchants, garlic merchants and ginger merchants to join the inventory. In January 2021, the cold inventory of apples was about 1.5 million tons higher than that of the same period of the previous year.
What is the pressure on the sales side of the fruit industry? According to the data of China Fruit Circulation Association, the total domestic fruit output this year is 274 million tons. This means that Chinese people need to consume nearly a catty of fruit every day to complete the task of destocking the fruit industry.
Domestic fruits are under pressure, and the annual festival of imported fruits is also difficult. Imported fruits, a popular gift before the Spring Festival in previous years, have continued to shrink this year, and they are also facing the pressure of high inventory. Taking cherries as an example, it is preliminarily estimated that there are nearly 1,500-2,000 cabinets in stock in China at present, and 5,000 cabinets will arrive in Hong Kong before the Spring Festival.
The epidemic situation in COVID-19 has become a cloud that cannot be dispersed on the head of imported fruits. Consumers’ panic about imported fruits has led to a decrease in purchasing desire and a sharp drop in sales volume.
A dealer who has been engaged in the import fruit business all the year round said that in order to attract consumers, he launched a "fruit gift package" that had never been seen before, and hung the report on the results of cold chain disinfection treatment conspicuously. Even so, there are still customers who are worried.
On the one hand, the fruit farmers begged, on the other hand, the consumers hesitated, and the dealers caught in the middle looked at the goods piled up in the warehouse and wanted to cry. For many fruit distributors, "surviving" has become the biggest wish this year.
Lost traditional market
It has to be admitted that the epidemic situation is profoundly changing the fruit industry in China.
Under the epidemic situation, the consumption demand of fruit as a non-necessity is slightly weak, which is directly reflected in the traditional wholesale market. The relevant person in charge of Beijing Xinfadi Market told the reporter that compared with previous years, the shipment of fruits dropped by about 40% this year. This data also applies to many offline chain retail stores.
A dealer in Guangxi said that some fresh fruit farms shipped five or six cars in the past day, but now there are only two or three cars a day, and the popularity is bleak, far less than in previous years.
In sharp contrast, the online market is hot. Jing Changbao, director of purchasing food, told the reporter that in 2020, the overall sales of fresh food on the platform will increase by three times, and consumers’ acceptance of various brands of agricultural products and landmark products will be significantly improved.
Compared with vegetables, fruits are obviously more suitable for online sales. According to a report released by China Academy of Agricultural Sciences, fruit was the largest category of online retail sales of agricultural products in 2019, accounting for 38.3%. The information disclosed by the person in charge of a fruit market consulting company is more intuitive. In the terminal sales of Apple, online sales reached 14%, the proportion of direct mining was 35%, and the proportion of farmers’ market dropped to about 40%.
The rules of the game have changed, and a large number of fruit stall owners have to change careers. "Online is direct supply from the place of origin, and the price sold to end consumers is even lower than our purchase price."
However, the final trend of online sales is still controversial in the industry.
"Community group buying, which was popular some time ago, also had a big impact on the fruit market. However, we believe that this low-price sales method is unsustainable and will eventually lead to vicious competition and low-price competition. In the long run, consumers will suffer. " Lu Fangxiao said.
Where is the spring of fruit industry?
How to spend the winter in the fruit industry smoothly?
In the eyes of the industry, the overall progress of fruit sales is slow now, which is more of a structural reason. There are many kinds of fruits, and consumers have great choices. 20 years ago, the scene of carrying sacks to buy apples is no longer there, and the trend of individualization, quality and branding of fruit consumption is becoming more and more obvious.
In the eyes of young consumers, traditional fruits such as apples and pears are no longer the first choice, and "liking the new and hating the old" is their consumption habit. From sugar orange five years ago, Wogan orange three years ago, to "online celebrity" jelly orange and ugly orange today, the rapid change of market hotspots has left many fruit farmers at a loss.
"Overall, the total supply of fruits in China is more than enough, and the structural contradictions are prominent. staple goods is everywhere, lacking safe, green and high-quality fruits." Lu Fangxiao believes that to fundamentally solve the problem of fruit industry, the key is to put an end to the disorderly expansion of production end. Only by adhering to high-quality development, continuously accelerating the improvement of varieties, continuously optimizing planting structure according to market demand, and cultivating more influential and well-known brands can consumers truly satisfy their pursuit of a better life.
Under pressure, it is urgent to adjust the industrial structure. Guangxi, which ranks first in citrus production in China, has taken the lead in moving. The Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-quality Development of Citrus Industry in Guangxi issued in November 2020 clearly pointed out that it is necessary to avoid following the trend, prevent industrial recession, and strive to further optimize the citrus structure and layout.
Embracing new channels has also become a compulsory course for traditional "fruit people". Some traditional channel dealers began to take the initiative to "get an electric shock online", hoping to take the sales path of combining online and offline at the same time and get closer to consumers.
Some dealers hope to make a "turnaround" by using "online celebrity" fruit, and regional public brands and landmark agricultural products become their first choice. The "2020 Online Consumption Trend Report of Agricultural Products" released by JD.COM Big Data Research Institute shows that at the moment when the brands of well-known agricultural products enterprises are not prominent, the place of origin has become the primary label of agricultural products quality.
In fact, even if we are experiencing the cold winter, people in the fruit industry feel differently. According to the data provided by JD.COM, the turnover of landmark agricultural products in the first half of 2020 still increased by 74% year-on-year. Fine brands such as Sichuan Ugly Orange and Yunnan Blueberry have seen a leap in sales.
The next spring of the fruit industry may be in these changes.
