This spring, domestic blueberries stood on the C position of spring fruits and became "Internet celebrity fruits".
The huge market blue ocean contains opportunities and challenges for the development of the blueberry industry. Is growing blueberries a lucrative business? Can consumers achieve "blueberry freedom"?
Courtesy of Visual China
Domestic blueberries sell at "seafood prices"
Due to the rapid rise in temperature this year, the blueberries appeared nearly half a month earlier than in previous years. The domestic blueberry with a large fruit diameter has become a well-deserved fruit "sales champion".
Blueberry sales in many offline stores and wholesale markets have increased significantly. Wang Weimin, manager of a fresh supermarket in Shenzhen, Guangdong, said: "At present, blueberries are the number one selling variety of fruits, and this year's sales have more than doubled compared with last year. ”
Yunnan is one of the main producing areas for growing blueberries, and recently orders have been pouring in from all over the country, and suppliers often have to deliver goods until two or three o'clock in the evening. According to the data of the wholesale procurement platform of agricultural products in one acre, after the Spring Festival this year, the procurement of blueberries soared by 1,100%, and nearly 50,000 buyers from all over the country are looking for blueberry sources on the platform.
The sales of blueberries on e-commerce platforms have also shown explosive growth. According to data from an e-commerce platform, from February 18 to March 22, the order volume of domestic blueberries increased by 1637.65% year-on-year.
Domestic blueberries are expensive, and they are even sold at a "seafood price". In Freshippo, 125 grams of Yunnan blueberries with a single fruit of 22 mm are priced at 23.9 yuan per box, or about 95 yuan per catty. Zheng Chunyu, who is engaged in the fruit distribution business at Beijing's Xinfadi wholesale market, said that the blueberries she sells are "four catties and eight taels of big boxes, and the wholesale price of blueberries with a fruit diameter of more than 22 millimeters is 600 yuan per box." She said that the blueberry is about 125 yuan per catty.
Blueberries are native to North America and were later introduced to the mainland. In recent years, domestic blueberry cultivation has expanded at an alarming rate. As of 2023, the number of blueberry-growing provinces in the country has expanded from the initial 10 to 27, and the blueberry cultivation area has grown rapidly from the initial 10 hectares to 77,000 hectares, with an annual output of 525,000 tons.
In addition, domestic blueberries can compete with imported blueberries to fill the market gap. According to reports, the supply period of domestic blueberries has been extended, and the supply period of nearly 10 months from November to August of the following year has been realized. At present, the market is basically Yunnan blueberries and some Sichuan blueberries, and the peak season of Yunnan blueberries lasts until April, and then blueberries in northern regions such as Shandong and Liaoning will take over.
Although the planting area and output of domestic blueberries have "increased", they still cannot meet the strong market demand. According to the "China Blueberry Industry Report 2023 Yearbook", the mainland's blueberry imports will reach nearly 60,000 tons in 2023. Over the past five years, the demand for blueberries has grown at an annual rate of about 40%. Industry insiders predict that the annual demand for blueberries in the mainland is about 1 million tons, and there is still a broad space for the development of domestic blueberries in the future.
Courtesy of Visual China
Can consumers achieve "blueberry freedom"?
Is growing blueberries a profiteering business?
"At present, domestic blueberry cultivation is in a highly profitable era. Industry insiders said that different production areas have different profits, taking Yunnan production areas as an example, the second year of planting has a bumper yield, and the output value can reach up to 150,000 yuan/mu, removing the cost of management and harvesting, and the income per mu is about 70,000 to 80,000 yuan. At the same time, the quality of domestic blueberries has improved, and some high-quality brands have sold at a higher price than some imported brands because the taste is more suitable for the Chinese market.
However, agricultural production is affected by multiple factors such as weather and disasters, and there are relatively few blueberry fruits in the open air, and renting land, building greenhouses and labor costs will affect profitability. Zheng Chunyu, for example, she sells a board of blueberries that can hold more than 200 pieces, each standard box of 3 catties, including 12 small boxes of blueberries, which cost more than 8,000 yuan in labor alone.
With the mass production of domestic blueberries, can consumers achieve "blueberry freedom"?
Why are blueberries so expensive? According to the data, blueberries are small berry products, and their flesh is soft and juicy, which has higher requirements for picking, transportation, and storage, and is restricted by actual conditions, and it is difficult to achieve the "cabbage price."
According to the fruit shop owner Sun Pipi, "in recent years, the production of blueberries has increased, and the price has been adjusted, and domestic blueberries can be sold for 19.9 yuan a box (125 grams) in the past, and 9.9 yuan a box at the cheapest." However, the price of some varieties of blueberries has not fallen, but will be higher. ”
Several wholesalers said that the price of blueberries is lower this year compared to last year. This year's production and market supply are much higher than last year's, so the market price of blueberries has fallen by about 10 to 15 percent year-on-year. The price of blueberries will continue to fall, and each piece is expected to float around twenty or thirty yuan. "The yield in the early stage is high, the relationship between supply and demand leads to a drop in prices, the temperature is too high, and the blueberries are not tolerant, so the proportion of quality will be larger. ”
Although the price of blueberries has declined, it still has not entered the category of ordinary people. Wu Lin, a professor at the College of Horticulture at Jilin Agricultural University, said it was not impossible to "beat" the price of blueberries. "Although blueberries have a cost limit and cannot join the price of 10 yuan and 3 catties, as long as the mass production reaches a reasonable range and the management cost decreases, it is still possible to achieve a sales price of 10 yuan a catty. Now, when you come to Changbai Mountain in July and August, you can buy blueberries for 10 yuan a pound in the morning market. ”
Courtesy of Visual China
How to solve the problem of "stuck neck" in the development of the industry
The lack of excellent varieties in the mainland blueberry industry has become the most critical problem restricting the development of the industry. Many of the excellent blueberry varieties cultivated abroad have applied for international patents, and the patent fees granted to the mainland blueberry company are also expensive, and the lack of patented varieties is becoming a "stuck neck" problem in the development of the mainland blueberry industry.
High-quality and high-quality are the consensus of blueberry practitioners. According to industry insiders, at present, the mainland is speeding up the pace of research and development of excellent blueberry varieties, and can develop excellent varieties with intellectual property rights within 3 to 5 years at the earliest.
In recent years, the quality and taste of blueberries have been getting better and better with the renewal of varieties. Li Yaoyang, a blueberry supplier in Chengjiang City, Yunnan Province, said that two new varieties of floral blueberries sold particularly well this year, and now six or seven tons of blueberries can be distributed every day.
Technology-enabled blueberry cultivation has become the norm. In many places, innovation can be seen in various growth stages, from blueberry breeding, tissue culture to planting. This is also driving the blueberry industry.
In Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, blueberries can be harvested in just one year after being grown in greenhouses. Different from the traditional agriculture of "relying on the sky to eat", the cultivation of blueberries in this greenhouse is very "scientific and technological". They adopt the method of soilless cultivation, eat peat, coconut peat and other prepared "soil", and "drink" the "nutritious meal" of trace elements after scientific proportioning. This ensures that the blueberries are nutriently controlled at every stage of growth, while yield and quality are greatly improved. Wu Wenlong, who is engaged in blueberry research, said that blueberries grown in the open air in greenhouses can be marketed at least 15 to 20 days in advance, and the economic benefits will be greatly increased.
More growers have begun to try to develop blueberry wine, preserved fruits, enzymes and other deep-processed products to explore more possibilities of the blueberry industry. The person in charge of a blueberry deep processing factory said that at present, it can produce more than 100 single products such as blueberry coffee, blueberry biscuits, blueberry candy, etc., and the products have been exported to more than 60 countries, accounting for 90% of export orders.
Zhou Hui, president of Jiangsu Lishui Blueberry Professional and Technical Association, said: "Domestic blueberry fresh fruits account for about 60% of the market, and I estimate that it will account for about 80% in the next two to three years." We plan to sell our products overseas through further processing. ”
Under the blue ocean of the market, the mainland blueberry industry is facing huge opportunities.
Zhang Liya tidying up