Before the Spring Festival, cherries entered the sales season to see how cherries grabbed the "fresh" market

Before the Spring Festival, cherries entered the peak sales season, and the reporter visited Guangzhou Nansha Port, the largest port for cherry imports in Chinese mainland, to see how cherries grabbed the "fresh" listing——

The customs clearance journey of "foreign New Year's goods" cherries

In the early morning of January 27, the third phase of Nansha Port in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province was brightly lit, and it was a busy scene——

As a 100,000-ton international cargo ship "Sally Maersk" slowly berthed, a silent "relay race" began. In the cab of the bridge crane, which is equivalent to a 16-story building and only a few square meters, Ye Zijie, a post-00 driver, is concentrating on operating the equipment. I saw him bend down, aim at the four sides of the container, control the huge bridge crane weighing 1,000 tons, slowly lower the spreader with 4 conical locks, and then steadily send it into the keyhole at the four corners of the container.

Landing, locking, lifting, dropping, unlocking...... The huge spreader is like a dexterous arm, and in less than 1 minute, a cold chain container weighing about 40 tons is moved from the cargo ship to the trailer on the surface platform. A total of 808 containers were loaded on the ship, and 19,000 tons of fresh Chilean cherries were unloaded on board.

From November to February of the following year, Chilean cherries are in season, coinciding with China's New Year's Day and Spring Festival consumption season, and the sweet and juicy cherries are becoming more and more popular among Chinese consumers. In the 2022-2023 production season, Guangzhou Nansha Port has become the largest port for cherry imports in Chinese mainland.

How to make imported cherries with delicate meat and invulnerable storage fresh on the market, and arrive at the table from the port at the fastest speed? A "cherry express" extending from the other side of the ocean thousands of miles away, "seamlessly" connecting the whole chain of customs clearance at the port "one-stop" service, has become a "happiness express" to ensure the "freedom of cherries" of Chinese people.

Shipping cherries have arrived in Hong Kong one after another, enriching consumers' New Year's "fruit basket"

If you want to say that the "star player" in the fruit world, cherries must have a place. It resembles a ruby in appearance, sweet and delicious, and moderately soft and hard. Before the Spring Festival every year, the consumption of cherries continues to rise, and topics such as the price of cherries frequently appear on the hot search. "In winter, there are few domestic fruits, but fortunately, imported cherries are on the market in large quantities. In a chain fruit store in Tianhe, Guangzhou, Ms. Liao, a citizen, said with a smile while paying for the cherries she had just picked, "Although the price is not low, after all, it is almost the New Year, so you should treat yourself and your family." ”

China's main importers of cherries include Chile, New Zealand and Australia. Among them, Chilean cherries account for the lion's share, accounting for as much as 90% of the world's exports, far exceeding other countries. Every year from November to February and March, the hottest summer in Chile is the growing season for cherries. In China, it is the three peak consumption seasons of New Year's Day, Spring Festival and Lantern Festival, and cherries have become a New Year's gift for many families.

Chilean cherries continue to enrich the New Year's "fruit basket" of Chinese consumers, largely thanks to the development of trade relations between the two countries. It is reported that in 2008, China and Chile signed the "Protocol on the Quarantine of Chilean Cherries and Prunes Exported to China", marking the official approval of Chilean cherries to enter the Chinese market, and since 2015, 97% of the goods in China and Chile have achieved zero tariffs, and cherries are one of them.

Usually, from mid-October, Chilean cherries are successively marketed in China, but in the early days, they are mainly transported by air, and the quantity is small and the price is high. With the arrival of a large number of seaborne cherries in Hong Kong, the price of imported cherries has continued to decline and began to enter thousands of households.

In the Chinese mainland market, 1 out of every 2 Chilean cherries is imported from Nansha Port in Guangzhou. On the edge of the port, 5 bridge cranes started work at the same time, more than 800 containers, Ye Zijie and his colleagues need to unload all of them within 5 hours, and one person has to unload more than 160 containers. Although he has lifted 20,000 containers in his career, Ye Zijie still does not dare to take it lightly: "We have only one task, which is to unload these cherries as quickly as possible. ”

This is the seventh Chilean "Cherry Express" connected to Nansha Port since the new season of Cherries in 2023-2024. The so-called express line refers to a direct voyage from Chilean port to Nansha, no longer calling at other ports on the way, and the whole journey takes only 21 days, which is more than half of the voyage of ordinary routes.

Like Ye Zijie, who works late at night, Ye Jianming, manager of the business development department of Nansha Port Phase III. He sat in the port monitoring and command center less than 3 kilometers away from the port, staring nervously at the various operations on the screen. "Once a week, the Cheerilee Express arrives at the port, which is a big test for the port. ”

In order to cope with this big test, Ye Jianming will formulate an operation plan in advance based on the cargo information, and at the same time ensure that the entire port runs each instruction accurately like a machine. "Pick-up containers that do not need to be inspected by customs are placed on the top deck, and the bridge crane will be unloaded and towed away as soon as possible. If it needs to be inspected by the customs, it will be unloaded and sent to the cold storage for cooling. In his view, efficiency is the core competitiveness of the port.

One month before the Spring Festival, is the busiest season for the port, overseas imports of timber, fruits and other goods, as well as the Pearl River Delta local production of ceramics, home appliances and other export goods, must be completed before the holiday, the overall business volume of the port increased by 20% than usual. "I have been coming to Nansha Port since 2017, experienced the completion and operation of the third and fourth phases of the port, and watched Nansha Port grow into one of the top five international ports in the world in terms of cargo throughput. Although I am getting busier and busier every year, my heart is full of a sense of accomplishment. Ye Jianming said.

More than 100 inspection and quarantine indicators, with a keen eye to strictly abide by the "safety on the tip of the tongue" of consumers

At 7 a.m., all the cherry cabinets on the freighter were unloaded, and about 30% of the cherry containers needed to be inspected by customs at the Nansha International Logistics Center, which is 2 kilometers away from the port. There is the largest single cold storage in the country, which can import and export 10,000 TEUs of cold chain goods per month.

At 9:15, Fan Shuyong, deputy chief of the cold chain supervision section of Nansha Port Phase III of Nansha Customs, which belongs to Guangzhou Customs, and his colleagues appeared on time on the inspection platform of the cold storage. They had to inspect a total of 177 containers of cherries that day, and there were 8 customs officers in charge of the inspection, divided into 4 groups, with an average of 44 containers to be inspected. "If it goes well, we can check it by 8 o'clock that night, but in any case, we won't let Cheerilee stay overnight on the inspection platform. Fan Shuyong said.

In Nansha Port, fresh fruits are imported all year round, such as durian from Thailand, longan from Cambodia, and cherries from Chile...... In 2023, the port will import more than 925,000 tons of cold-chain goods, including more than 430,000 tons of imported fruits. Exotic fruits from all over the world enrich the "fruit plate" of domestic consumers. It is expected that before the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon, Nansha Port will also receive and unload two Chilean cherry clippers, and a total of about 100,000 tons of cherries will be imported from this throughout the 2023-2024 season.

Such a large number of fresh fruits come from afar, and each grain is related to the "safety of the tip of the tongue" of domestic consumers. After graduating from university in 2014, Fan Shuyong came to Nansha to engage in the supervision of cold chain goods, and is a business expert with plant quarantine expert qualifications. "When I was a child, the fruit I saw the most was Shandong 'Red Fuji', but I didn't expect to see fruits from all over the world in the harbor when I grew up. ”

The inspection platform is 100 meters long and 15 meters wide, which is equivalent to two standard basketball courts, and can park 54 container trucks at the same time. Fan Shuyong and his colleagues need to shuttle back and forth between the inspection platforms for inspection, and it takes three or four hours to walk, and at the end of the day, the number of steps walked is easily "20,000+". "The inspection platform is still cold and constant, and the cold air is drilling into the collar and trouser legs, and after a long time, the ankles and neck will ache faintly. Fan Shuyong said.

The main purpose of the inspection of imported fruits is to prevent the risk of plant epidemic and food safety hazards, and it is necessary to check more than 10 quarantine indicators such as pests and more than 100 inspection indicators related to pesticide residues. During the inspection, Fan Shuyong will carefully check whether the cherries have wormholes, spots, etc., and then will take samples according to the requirements of the instructions, and the samples will be sent to the laboratory for pesticide and contaminant testing. At the same time, Fan Shuyong will also randomly select some cherries and crush them, pour them into the configured brown sugar water, and let them stand for 10 minutes before carefully observing them in the spotlight. If there are "uninvited guests" who are "smuggled" in the fruit, there will be nowhere to hide under their "sharp eyes" at this time.

"One-stop" customs clearance, connecting the "last mile" from the "Cheerilee Express" to consumers

At 12:30 p.m., on the 8th floor of Nansha International Logistics Center, Yang Hua, manager of Shenzhen Jianchengye International Freight Forwarding Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jianchengye Company"), held a boxed lunch in his hand, and his eyes kept staring at the computer screen.

A customs clearance message popped up, he immediately put down the lunch box, picked up the mobile phone on the table, and called the team: "Cabinet 67 of the inspection platform has been cleared, and it will be sent to the Jiangnan Fruit Wholesale Market immediately." ”

Jianchengye Company is a cross-border fruit logistics service provider, and the import fruit business covers the whole country. In 2023, the company will import more than 300,000 tons of fruits, including about 50,000 tons of cherries. In addition to being sold locally in Guangzhou, some cherries radiate outward through the highway and can reach many cities across the country within 24 hours.

Although he has been in the industry for 10 years, Yang Hua cheers up every time he imports cherries: "Cherries have very high requirements for logistics efficiency, and the price will be different when they are listed earlier and later, and every customer wants to receive the goods faster than others." ”

The reason why such a large import volume can be quickly and safely passed into the country is that Nansha Port has been maintaining 365 days of customs clearance throughout the year, which is an excellent environment created by the hard work of the "guardians" of the country. "We will make every effort to make fresh cherries reach the tables of domestic consumers quickly under the premise of maintaining biosecurity and food safety. Customs is 'strict', but it's also warm. Fan Shuyong said.

In order to ensure the safe and smooth customs clearance at the port and the "freshness and quality" of imported fruits, in recent years, Nansha Customs has provided "one-stop" services in customs clearance links such as document review, laboratory testing and certificate issuance while strictly controlling the inspection and quarantine of imported fruits, and implemented facilitation measures of "advance declaration and shipside diversion" to fully support the safe and efficient customs clearance of perishable agricultural and food products such as imported fruits.

"We use 5G technology to use high-definition camera equipment to scan and obtain container information in real time during the unloading process, and the container information can be automatically associated with the data of the terminal operation system. Fan Shuyong said.

One of the "heroes" is the Nansha International Logistics Center cold chain project, which will be opened in October 2023. This "Asia's largest refrigerator" located in the third phase of Nansha Port, through the in-depth implementation of convenient customs clearance measures such as "certificate pre-examination" and "shipside direct transportation", connects to the "last mile" of the "Cherry Express" to reach consumers, radiates outward along the expressway, and can cover the urban agglomeration of the Greater Bay Area in one hour. Taking Guangzhou as an example, after the "shipside pick-up" truck arrives at the port area, it only takes 11 minutes to transport the cherries to the Jiangnan Fruit Market in Guangzhou and other places from entering the gate to loading and exiting the gate.

After a two-hour gallop, a truckload of cherries delivered by truck driver Feng Mingquan arrived at the Jiangnan Fruit Wholesale Market in Guangzhou at 4:50 p.m. Wang Sheng, a domestic dealer, stood guard at the market gate early, guiding the trucks to park and prepare for the opening of the cabinet in the afternoon.

Located in the west of Guangzhou, the Jiangnan Fruit Wholesale Market is the largest fruit and vegetable wholesale market in the country, and imported fruits account for more than half of the total import fruit transactions in the country. Every year, tens of thousands of containers loaded with imported fruits gather here through Nansha Port and then distribute and transport them to the whole country.

During this time, the wholesale market is open 24 hours a day. At 6 a.m., the first cherries go on sale and last until 9 p.m. "At the peak of the season, the buyers surrounded the containers full of cherries, and hundreds of cabinets were opened, which was a spectacular scene, comparable to the scene of chasing stars. When I met a good quality cherry, it was ordered out as soon as I opened the cabinet, and I couldn't grab it. Wang Sheng said.

The first three weeks of the Chinese New Year are the golden period for the sale of imported cherries, and as the quality of Chilean producing areas becomes more stable, the arrival of cherries gradually increases, and the prices are more affordable. Compared with 2023, Wang Sheng feels that the overall price of cherries in 2024 will drop slightly, and buyers will be more willing to take goods, and sales will be steadily increasing every day. "We have launched a cherry gift box to better meet the consumption needs of the Chinese New Year. ”

At 10 p.m., with the last cabinet of cherries sold out, Wang Sheng finally ended his busy day. Back at his stall at the fruit market, he took the time to eat and sleep, and the next day, a new batch of cherries was waiting for him to sell.

Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition