Source: Economic Daily
The vegetable market carries the strongest fireworks in a city. A dazzling array of melons and fruits, new seasonal vegetables, the four seasons change in this small world, as if you have time in your hands. This sense of gain and satisfaction in the integration of life into time brings people a completely different feeling from visiting supermarkets and shopping malls.
As the saying goes, there are seven things to wake up every day: firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, and it is not life without any taste. The voice of the street vendors is mixed with the accents of the north and the south, and the interesting character dialogues are observed in the inquiry solicitation, and the vegetable market contains the soul and background color of a city, beating the strong pulse of the city.
At the doorstep
Located in Beijing's Shijingshan District, the Pingdong Market was discovered by the author while wandering around by chance, the vegetable market is lively but not noisy, fruits and vegetables are operated in different regions, fruits are matched by street vendors according to color, and seasonal fruits are generally placed in front of customers' eyes.
In the vegetable section, freshly marketed corn, broad beans and peanuts sit next to each other, and the faint aroma of corn is wrapped in an earthy smell. While talking, Zhang Lusheng, a vendor, kept breaking the soil on the garlic with his rough hands.
Originally from Shandong, he and his wife have been selling vegetables in Pingdong Market for six years. When he returned to his hometown, Zhang Lusheng saw that the garlic grown by his mother could not be sold, so he simply put together a van of garlic from his family and his neighbors and pulled it back to Beijing. "There is not too much garlic in our village, and it is difficult to export it in batches, and the buyers do not come to the village, and they can't eat it at home, so I pull it back to Beijing and sell it, and 12 garlic braids are sold for 10 yuan a piece." The big girl's braided purple garlic is good in size and appearance, and 3 customers have paid for it during the chat. The garlic grown by the neighbors is sold to customers near the vegetable market, just for convenience.
The sound of selling, asking for prices, and the sound of mobile phone software payment coming to the account in the vegetable market one after another, weaving a music of life. The transaction is warm because of the integration of human feelings, which makes people forget their troubles for a while and return to the true nature of life.
Whether it is Beijing or Xining, where I live, the vegetable market is basically near residential areas, and like schools, pharmacies and supermarkets, they form an important part of life. When recommending real estate development, developers will also introduce these to prospective customers as important urban living facilities in the planning. The urban planning department will also plan in advance to support infrastructure such as farmers' markets in accordance with the planning of the area.
The top customers of the day in the vegetable market are often the aunts and uncles who live nearby, and buy vegetables to cook for their families. They are characterized by slow movements, back-and-forth comparisons, and meticulous selection. When the market is busy at night, office workers often don't have time to compare back and forth, see you hesitate, the vendors whisper to you that it is cheaper for 5 jiao 1 yuan, and send two shallots and coriander when loading vegetables.
Life is an experience. Fortunately, in the flow of life, I love to visit the vegetable market in every city, and I did not miss the gifts of the season. The vegetable market has the most authentic background of life, when no one is idle, the vendors are chattering about homely things, and the children who suddenly roar in dialect in the shouting voice are all over the field, there is no politeness in the office building, and there is no silence on the subway, while treating the taste buds on the tip of the tongue, the vegetable market also nurtures my emotions and soul.
Great circulation
One day at the end of June, I came to the Xinfadi Agricultural Products Center Wholesale Market in Fengtai District, Beijing at 6 o'clock in the morning, saw the transit circulation of a large number of commodities, and felt the vitality brought by the large circulation to a city. Whether it is the market size, product types, radiation scope or management services, it all reflects the activity of Beijing's consumer market.
Liu Tianyang, a native of Hebei Province, inherited his father's business after graduating from university, and took root in Xinfadi Fruit Boutique District, his father was selected as the "Cherry King" in the market, and in recent years, Liu Tianyang began to do durian import business.
"Our durians mainly come from Thailand and Viet Nam, radiating to the northern region, and can reach one container per day. The biggest difficulty in durian transportation is that it is necessary to control the temperature and humidity of the whole process of transportation according to the maturity of the fruit. Liu Tianyang said that the freight of a container by sea is between 30,000 yuan and 50,000 yuan, which is cheaper than land and air transportation, but it takes a long time, often takes more than 10 days, and has high requirements for quality control; The land transportation time is short, and the cost is higher; The highest price of air freight is basically to meet the needs of regular customers.
During the New Year's holidays, relatives and friends reunite, regardless of the world, a table of good dishes is the standard, frying and cooking, rivers, lakes and seas, all gathered in this table of dishes. With the continuous development of the mainland economy, the large circulation is profoundly changing the dining table of the Chinese people, and also constantly affecting the world. All kinds of dishes are transported to thousands of households by various means of transportation such as planes, ships, automobiles, small tricycles, and battery cars. Express delivery, cold chain and other forms have greatly enriched the dining table of Chinese, and in the process of large circulation, China's catering culture has also spread to all over the world.
Located in Chaoyang District, Beijing, Sanyuanli Vegetable Market is famous in Beijing for its unique international characteristics, rich product variety and high-quality commodity quality. Walking into a straight-way vegetable market in Sanyuanli, Australian lobster, Italy sausage, Malaysia durian, Mexico avocado and other ingredients from all over the world gather here. The market is located in the concentration area of the Beijing embassy, and there are many foreign customers. They "buy all over the world" here, and they can also source authentic hometown ingredients.
Sanyuanli Vegetable Market has many areas such as vegetables, fruits, fresh meat, aquatic products, non-staple food seasonings, grains and oils, pasta, tea, department stores and daily groceries, covering almost all food-related commodities. There are also many foreign specialty products in the market, such as imported cheese, Italy sausage, France black truffle, etc., and countless global ingredients, red wines, and spices gather here. After walking around, you can feel the strong international metropolis atmosphere of Beijing.
"The largest customer base of our store's dairy products is the aunts and uncles who live nearby, with the improvement of the consumption capacity of the Chinese people and the importance of health, now the consumption and procurement ability of the people of our country for high-quality ingredients have been rising." Pu Xiaojun, a native of Hebei Province, is nearly 50 years old, and has imported high-quality ingredients through a foreign trade company, and has decorated his store to the brim, with two tall fresh-keeping cabinets filled with almost every brand of cheese, butter and cheese on the market. "I've been buying and selling here for decades, and the cheese and wine in the market are run by our two separate shops. At present, the business has gradually expanded from physical stores to online sales, and the biggest change in this wet market is that it used to provide ingredients to international friends in the vicinity, and now the number of domestic customers is starting to surpass. ”
The richness of the national dining table has witnessed the convenience brought about by large circulation. In the process of globalization, the huge consumer group in mainland China has made China an important market that cannot be ignored by international merchants.
New demand
As a platform for consumers to improve their quality of life, the types and sources of goods in the vegetable market, as well as the sales model, are undergoing new changes around demand. Consumer demand is the invisible hand that drives changes in the lettuce market.
In Beijing's Sanyuanli Vegetable Market, the author saw two stalls with no vegetables at all, but several young people had been packing and delivering goods, and they were very busy. With a mobile phone and a laptop, everyone can put the dishes of the entire vegetable market into the online product window.
After receiving the customer's online order, several young people from Sanyuanli who delivered the ingredients to the whole city were responsible for an order, and quickly completed the purchase in the vegetable market and delivered it to the whole city, focusing on convenience and speed.
The convenience of the Internet is beginning to affect traditional wet markets. Located in Xining City, Qinghai Province, Mojia Street, a famous century-old market, is the first choice for locals to buy fresh ingredients and local products. In recent years, it has gradually become a popular spot for tourists from other places.
Mojia Street is a large-scale comprehensive market, which has a local specialty area, a dried fruit fresh area, Mazhong snack city, vegetable and fruit market, etc., bringing together local local specialties, coastal city seafood, Xinjiang dried fruits, Nepal saffron and other local specialty products, is the most abundant and important market for Xining citizens in Qinghai to buy ingredients.
Lu Aizhi from Henan Province has been working in the Mojia Street Hehuang Specialty Market for 9 years, and the shops of more than 60 square meters are filled with hundreds of goods such as wolfberry, beef jerky, saffron, yak milk slices, etc., among which strings of dried Qilian yellow mushrooms hang in a conspicuous place. "In the past, we mainly sold dry goods, and sun-dried Qilian yellow mushrooms were a must-have specialty for all merchants, but now customers prefer to buy fresh, and the sales of dry goods are not as good as before."
In the past, because logistics and cold chain technology were not as convenient as they are now, merchants basically sold more dry goods. Now, with the smooth flow of highways in the province, fresh ingredients such as yellow mushrooms from Qilian County, yak meat from Yushu Prefecture, and yak yogurt from Huangnan Prefecture are continuously supplied to the dining tables of citizens.
Another important reason is that consumers' needs for quality and health, diversity and personalization are also changing, and in order to improve the quality of life, convenient and efficient purchasing methods have been born.
In the Mojia Street vegetable market, in front of a stall full of golden fresh Qilian yellow mushrooms, a lady is buying Qilian yellow mushrooms of moderate size, "Now is the time to go on the market, after this period of time, there is no fresh one to eat." Xining citizens, including customers from other places, know that fresh Qilian yellow mushrooms taste delicious.
"Our wild fresh yellow mushrooms come from Qilian County, 280 kilometers away, and can be sold for 35 to 40 yuan a catty. Mr. and Mrs. Han Chengcai from Menyuan County keep stalls in the vegetable market every day, and usually sell seasonal fresh ingredients from the plateau to all parts of the country through the Internet.
Last year, the Beijing Xinfadi Market opened a wholesale market in Xining City, Qinghai Province, as a government introduction project, which was given the role of giving play to the large-scale circulation of plateau agricultural and animal husbandry products to the outside world, and the work of the wholesale market is progressing smoothly.
At present, the demand of mainland consumers for food ingredients is undergoing profound changes, which are not only reflected in quality, health, diversification and personalization, but also involve convenience, ecological and environmental protection and other aspects, which are promoting the evolution, evolution and innovation of the vegetable market to meet the growing new needs of consumers.
Lingering in the vegetable markets in different regions, tasting the changing social conditions of the times, what remains unchanged is the thick fireworks in the world. Take a walk around these places full of smoke and fire, and every day is a new day. (Author: Shi Jing Source: Economic Daily)