70 yuan a catty, this year's lychee freedom is gone

City Boundary

2024-05-09 14:09Posted on the official account of Beijing Municipality

70 yuan a catty, this year's lychee freedom is gone

01. Lychees were sold for 70 yuan a catty

No lychee, no summer. In the world of Wenwen, a post-90s girl, lychee is an indispensable existence in the hot summer, she doesn't like sweets, and resists all sweet fruits such as watermelon and bananas, but she has a soft spot for lychees.

"The concubine I bought online in June last year smiled, more than 5 yuan a catty, big and sweet. I used to show off more than half a pound in one night, and in the middle of the night I got on fire, my throat was so dry that it was almost smoking, and I was burned alive. Wenwen recalled. In May this year, she couldn't wait to go to the supermarket, and was startled when she saw the price, and the price of the concubine smiled at 26.8 yuan per catty. The fruit store is more expensive, the retail price of A-level concubine smile is 42.9 yuan/jin, and the membership price is 34.8 yuan/jin, which is really a bit unaffordable.

On online platforms, the price of lychees is also not cheap. On the Hundred Fruit Garden, a pound of concubine smile costs 38.9 yuan, but it has been sold out. On Pupu Supermarket and Dingdong to buy vegetables, the concubine laughs at lychees for about 40 yuan a catty. On Meituan's grocery shopping, fresh concubine laughing lychees cost 68.8 yuan per catty, and the price reached 46.8 yuan after the discount. The other two varieties of peony red lychee and osmanthus fragrant lychee were priced at 42 yuan and 72 yuan per catty respectively.

▲ (Lychee price on e-commerce platform)

"When I first started selling lychees at the end of April last year, the price of origin was around 25 yuan/catty, but at the end of April this year, it reached a maximum of 40 yuan/catty, and the price is still fluctuating," Pu Pu told "City Boundary".

Li Li, who buys a box of lychees online every year in May, is no longer thinking about lychees this year. Last year, she bought five catties of concubine laughing lychees on Pinduoduo, which only cost 56.8 yuan.

She found another order that was canceled after last year's transaction, and found that although the store was still there, the price of lychees had risen from 50 yuan to 70 yuan, and the delivery time was uncertain. "Lychee freedom said no, no, I looked at the price of cherries has not increased yet, the price of five catties is about the same as lychees, and I plan to buy cherries this year."

Beijing's Xinfadi Fruit Wholesale Market, which is known for its cheap and freshness, currently sells most of its fruits such as watermelons, durians, and blueberries. A number of fruit wholesalers told the "City Boundary" that lychees are in stock, mainly Feizixiao, and this variety has just been launched not long ago, and it will be sold for about a month, and then it will wait for Guiwei to be launched in June.

In terms of price, the minimum price for a box of 3 catties is 110 yuan, which is nearly 37 yuan per catty. "It's already cheap. You came here three days ago, and a box cost more than 200 yuan. ”

In the provinces where lychees are grown, the price of lychees is not optimistic. According to media reports, the lychees sold in the Guangxi market are mainly Hainan-made concubines, who are small in size, and the price is 40 yuan ~ 56 yuan / kg. Hainan's early-maturing variety of osmanthus fragrant lychee is 70-120 yuan per catty by air.

A Guangdong netizen said with emotion, "I miss the lychee in 2018, and the concubine laughs for 10 yuan and three catties." Unless the output is very small, it is almost four or five yuan a pound per year. ”

Baiguoyuan told "City Boundary" that this year, the current terminal price of lychees in Baiguoyuan has increased by about 10% year-on-year. This is temporary, though. Next, with the simultaneous listing of the north and south producing areas of Hainan, the price will gradually fall.

"The fruit that just came down must be expensive. And the early stage is air freight, the cost is high. In the case of automobile transportation, it takes three days to transport the lychees from Hainan to Beijing, and during the transportation process, the lychees must be stored in the freezer and ice to ensure freshness, and the actual cost is not low. A shopkeeper in Xinfadi said. Because of this, many consumers like Wenwen said they were willing to wait.

"It's okay to buy it in a few days." The shopkeeper agreed. But he also said that the price of cinnamon in the later period is estimated to be not cheap, in previous years it was sold to thirty or forty yuan a catty, and the specific price can only be known when it is obtained this year, but I heard that the output is small, so the price cannot be low. ”

02. Heavy rains are frequent, and the output is a 10-year low

Why has lychee become something that people can't afford to eat this year?

According to China National Geographic, among the tropical and subtropical forests in the southern part of the mainland, Fujian, Liangguang and Hainan are the main producing areas of lychee, among which Maoming City, Guangdong Province, accounts for about a quarter of the domestic lychee production.

Every year in March and April, in the mountains and wilderness of Lingnan, lychee flowers will bloom into a vast ocean. Although the amount of lychee flowers is huge, there are fewer female flowers that can bear fruit, and the pollination of lychee mainly depends on insects, which is greatly affected by the climate.

Oman, a lychee farmer in Conghua District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, has been selling lychees on Xiaohongshu for three years. According to her, the main reason for the high price of lychees this year is that the quantity is small, and the small amount is affected by abnormal weather. "It's not cold when it's cold, it's not hot when it's hot, it's not hot when it's hot, and when it's hot, the lychee tree blooms, and after flowering, it suddenly cools down, and it doesn't bloom, and it repeats itself."

"At the beginning of May, I just participated in the Lychee Exhibition in Hainan, and it is an established fact that this year is a small and medium-sized year of lychee, because there is no quantity at all." Oman told "City Boundary" that the 2024 lychee flowering and fruit setting situation was introduced at the exhibition, and it was clearly written on the big screen that "there are many rainy weather during the flowering period, and the flowering is not ideal, which is the lowest flowering rate in recent years." It is expected that the output of Concubine Xiao will decrease by about 30% compared with last year, and the output of Zi Niangxi will decrease by about 80% compared with last year. ”

Oman's own main cultivation is cinnamon-flavored lychee, which is the hardest hit area by the reduced production. She judged that "the yield of cinnamon flavor in the Conghua area has been reduced by at least 80%." As for their own lychee trees, they did not bloom at first, and there was a "red flag fluttering" (referring to the scene of the lychee tree not flowering and the new branches and leaves showing red), and some flowers barely appeared in the later stage.

Based on the limited production, she posted a preview in the user group, saying, "In June, Guiwei is on the market, and if you want to squat on Guiwei, let's explain first, now it rains heavily every day in Guangzhou, and I am not sure how many fruits I can hang when there is Guiwei at the end of June, and the price will be very expensive." Baiguoyuan also said that the reduction of lychee production has a greater impact on the terminal, mainly because of the high price, which in turn affects the repurchase rate of consumers.

Oman revealed that among so many brands in the country, the output of Feizixiao and white sugar poppy is slightly better, and Feizixiao has an earlier flowering period and has partially avoided extreme weather. But the first to go on the market in Lingshui County, Hainan Province, the concubine smiled at a price of more than 30 yuan a catty.

As Oman said, official statistics from Guangdong show that since the beginning of the flood season this year (April 4 to May 4), the average rainfall in Guangdong province has been 572.8 mm, three times that of the same period in recent years (194.8 mm).

Forced by the production of lychees is too small, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology said that more than 200 tons of "sleeping lychees" saved last year have been retailed on e-commerce platforms this year, and this year strive to use new preservation technology to preserve 2,000 tons of lychees, so that consumers can eat lychees all year round.

A netizen on Weibo who pays attention to the price of lychees was shocked when he saw the news, "It is said that Guangdong took out hundreds of tons of lychees that were frozen for 10 months last year, can this be eaten?" You said that apples are barely acceptable to go into cold storage, and lychees are such a delicate fruit, frozen for 10 months, and still claim to taste the same? ”

The netizen complained, "I plan not to eat lychees this year, it will be difficult to earn money, and I will give up expensive fruits." I heard that the price of durian has dropped this year, and it is said on the Internet that it has fallen below 10 yuan per catty, so if you can't eat durian, which one is cost-effective to eat. ”

"Like many fruits, the big year is followed by a small year, and the lychee was a big year (harvest year) last year, and this year, if it is according to the normal small year market, the yield will be reduced by about 20%, which is a self-protection mechanism for plants", an industry insider told the "city boundary", "but this year it has also superimposed the situation of the spring cold during the Spring Festival, resulting in a significant reduction in production in all producing areas, and almost all lychee varieties have been affected, and the industry judges that the output should be a 10-year low." ”

03. Merchants are also worried

The Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu's sentence "When the concubine laughs on the red dust, no one knows that it is lychee", which caused the world to envy Yang Guifei for thousands of years, and also made the public have a deep impression of the delicate and rare attributes of lychee.

Regarding this fact, Ma Boyong's best-selling work "Lychee in Chang'an" has a very detailed interpretation. Ma Boyong, who had a big brain, built a Tang Dynasty social animal, and Li Shande tried his best to complete the task of offering lychees for the concubine's birthday. The freshness of fresh lychees was only three days, and the distance from Lingnan, the lychee producing area at that time, to Chang'an, was more than 5,000 miles.

Li Shande used scientific variable algorithms, through experiments and ingenious operation route design, using methods such as cutting branches into the soil, sealing the urn with wax, freezing water barriers, and storing bamboo seeds, etc., and finally lived up to the emperor's order, behind which was a huge price of manpower and financial resources.

"I thought that now that the cultivation and transportation technology is developed, the freedom of lychee has been realized a long time ago," Wenwen said. Unexpectedly, in 2024, lychee will become exclusive to nobles again.

A fruit buyer of the fresh brand "Benlai Life" told "City Boundary" that the reduction in lychee production has directly led to a selective reduction in procurement, "The output of Feizixiao and white sugar poppy is basically the same as last year; Jinggang Red and Xian Jinfeng are about fifty percent of last year; The particularly serious reduction in output is seedless lychee, cinnamon, and glutinous rice balls, and the output is expected to only reach about 10% of last year. ”

"If the supply is low, the price will go up," said the buyer, "We have to plan ahead for the market, understand the origin and market conditions, and at the same time adjust the purchase plan more flexibly." ”

Baiguoyuan revealed that the total planned purchase of lychees on the platform this year is about 8,600 tons, and the total planned volume has decreased slightly compared with last year, mainly due to the overall lychee price that has been higher than last year's due to the reduction in production, especially the Guiwei lychee and glutinous rice glutinous lychee, which have reduced their output by more than 80% year-on-year.

It is not easy for fresh e-commerce platforms to maintain a stable supply in the face of a sharp drop in production, and the special category of lychee has the characteristics of concentrated ripening and rapid fruiting, so it needs to be picked and transported quickly after ripening. Therefore, direct sourcing has become a common choice.

"After the lychee is picked from the base, it will quickly pass through the ice water, and then be packaged and shipped, generally only 48 hours from picking to the cities, and the sales will be completed in an average of 1-2 days after the front warehouse is put on the shelves," Pu Pu said. Baiguoyuan has done a good job in the layout and planning of the production area in advance to ensure the stable supply and quality.

For upstream growers, they not only have to face the dilemma of plummeting production, but also have to deal with fierce market competition. Tianyancha data shows that in the past year, there were 504 newly registered lychee planting merchants, nearly 100 more than the new merchants in 2023. After seeing the bumper harvest brought by the lychee year, blindly following the trend of planting ushered in only the defeat of reduced yield.

In recent years, due to the profit-seeking mentality of merchants, the former aristocratic fruits are lining up to walk down the altar. From strawberries and cherries to sunshine roses and Tunisian soft-seeded pomegranates, the Hermes of the fruit world are becoming cheaper thanks to the expansion of planted areas and the increase in production and imports. Recently, the freedom of durian has been realized, and it has also appeared on the hot search on Weibo, becoming another "civilian fruit".

And the merchants who grow aristocratic lychees are only looking forward to survival this year. "Don't rain heavily before the lychee market opens," said a lychee merchant from western Guangdong, who was lucky to escape the rainy season a while ago due to its geographical location, and his lychee tree was lucky to spend the flowering period. ”

(Wenwen, Li Li, and Aman are pseudonyms)

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