On July 21, 2021, Guangdong Lychee Tasting Session for Africa was held, and African friends tasted lychees. (Xinhua Net/Photo)
On the West Coast of the United States in midsummer, the afternoon sun shines on the bustling streets, and the air is filled with the air of joy. Facing the sea, a Western-style restaurant bar is a grand gourmet "party" that tempts more than 100 foodies of different skin colors. From fruit plates to main courses, from cocktails to salads, a midsummer fruit delivers a uniquely luscious sweetness.
This midsummer fruit, a fresh lychee fruit unfamiliar to Americans, comes from Guangdong, China. This is a "Guangdong Lychee Feast" held in San Francisco half a month ago. The unique Beauty Food Appreciation Meeting has allowed Lychee to capture many "foreign fans".
After tasting the lychee salad, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown commented that the taste of lychees was "simply unparalleled in California." The Wall Street Journal called the tasting a "sweet delivery" of Guangdong Lychee and asserted that Guangdong Lychee was "ready to go global."
Crossing the Pacific Ocean and spanning thousands of kilometers, letting fresh lychees "sweetly deliver" is something that Chinese litchi farmers did not dare to think of in the past. This subtropical fruit is not tolerant to storage, making it difficult to extend the transportation radius. However, this summer, the red lychees quietly ran on the shelves of European and American supermarkets, and "Chinese fruit" was relished by foreign consumers.
As of June 2021, Guangdong Lychee's "going to sea" territory has covered six continents around the world and entered the fruit market in more than 20 countries and regions. In Guangdong, one out of every 100 lychees crosses the ocean and reaches the tip of overseas consumers' tongues. The ancient lychee cultivation industry has undergone unprecedented changes.
What kind of economic logic is hidden in the drastic changes?
On the surface, this is the struggle of the ancient lychee industry to open up new overseas markets; on a deeper level, this is the technology and marketing methodology of Guangdong Province as China's "economic superior student" to migrate the digital economy, and to integrate the ancient agriculture into the wave of modernization and globalization.
<h3>"Shout the world to eat lychees"</h3>
In recent years, Chen Yaohua's fruit trading business has undergone "great changes", and the number of purchasing managers of foreign supermarkets who have taken the initiative to come to the door has gradually increased. These purchasing managers, who speak native English, have a clear demand that they need a stable supply of Chinese lychees.
In November 2019, with the support of the agricultural department of Guangdong Province, seven enterprises engaged in international trade in lychees decided to "go to sea in groups" and establish Guangdong Zhongli Agricultural Group Co., Ltd. Chen Yaohua was elected chairman, and selling lychees became his top priority.
"In the past, the foreign supermarket knew me through lychee, but now the foreign supermarket knows me through lychee." Chen Yaohua said that the days when it was necessary to connect with foreign supermarkets to promote lychees in the past have gradually gone. Now that the channel is in hand, he seems to be in a "seller's market".
Some gradually emerging signs also suggest that overseas markets are accepting lychees. In the community of international students, "North American Money Saving Express", the user "@Fiora Smile" posted in July 2020 that in costco, a well-known supermarket in Indiana, there are lychees for sale, and the color and taste are "OK". Many followers commented on the author's "hindsight", and lychee has already appeared in many Chinese supermarkets.
On foreign social networking platforms, video bloggers such as Guo Jerry and Robin are incarnated as "tap water" and introduce the "magical eating method" of lychee in the video clip.
Public reports in overseas media show that not only overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese students, but also other overseas ethnic groups have begun to try this strange fruit. This red fruit, which is rich in Chinese cultural connotations, is called "Chinese fruit" by many consumers overseas.
Lychee has a unique Chinese cultural heritage. The love between Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei, Su Dongpo's meaning of "three hundred lychees in the day", and the names of varieties with oriental meanings such as guiwei and concubine smile all create a unique poetry of the oriental secret realm.
"Interest in Chinese manufacturing in overseas markets is spreading to Chinese fruits." Chen Yaohua judged that Chinese-made consumer goods have penetrated into overseas markets in the past few decades, leaving a deep national impression on consumers. This Chinese impression, coupled with the spread of overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese, the unfamiliar Chinese lychee will inevitably not be concerned.
"They [overseas purchasing managers] can't be uninterested," Chen yaohua told Southern Weekend, "especially when they find lychees brushing the plane and brushing the Nasdaq screen, they must be curious about what kind of fruit it is." ”
Potential consumer demand often needs some marketing rain and dew to moisten. Chen Yaohua's "brushing airplanes" and "brushing big screens" that impressed "foreign managers" refers to the global marketing actions of Guangdong Lychee in the past three years.
On May 20, 2020, China's "Internet Valentine's Day", China Southern Airlines' lychee-painted Airbus A330 airliner slowly took off from Guangzhou, launching a propaganda offensive of "expressing love with lychees". For more than two months, the painted "Guangdong Litchi" was like a mobile billboard for a global parade, spanning many large and medium-sized cities in Asia, Oceania and Africa. Shortly after the painted plane made its maiden flight, advertisements for Guangdong Litchi appeared on the Q'SEYE electronic screen in Tokyo and the NASDAQ screen in Times Square. As a result, the world's top ten core city landmarks "resonance on the same screen" jointly issued the slogan of "Guangdong shouting the world to eat lychees".
Earlier in the summer of 2019, the "Guangdong Lychee Silk Road Tour", which covered several overseas lychee tasting sessions, kicked off to promote the "Sweet Departure of the Belt and Road". The lychee feast that captivated former Mayor Willie Brown was the first tasting in San Francisco for the 2020 marketing season.
Guangdong Province is an "economic superior student" with a developed manufacturing industry, and has a first-class city such as Guangzhou, the "capital of e-commerce". The matrix marketing strategy that was previously applied to the beauty and electronics categories was "grafted" into the sales of lychees in Guangdong. This "Internet play" with Guangdong characteristics is rare and bold even compared with international fruit brands such as "Xinqishi" and "Joyvo". The propaganda offensive of "dimensionality reduction and crackdown" quickly made supermarket purchasing managers who were eager to open up new categories "break the defense" and began to capture the attention of overseas consumers.
This is a three-dimensional global marketing action promoted by government departments and jointly participated by the whole industry chain. Driven by strong marketing, the "postal route" of Guangdong Lychee to overseas markets was quickly opened.
Customs statistics show that in the first half of 2021, under the pressure of domestic and international epidemic fluctuations, Guangdong fresh lychee exported 6504 tons, an increase of 79.8% year-on-year; the output value was 130 million yuan, an increase of 62.4% year-on-year. That's enough to be exciting.
"Just like when Chinese began to accept durian, it is difficult to close the floodgates of consumption habits as soon as they are opened," Chen Yaohua said firmly, "at present, the share of lychees in overseas markets is less than 5%, which is definitely a big market." ”
<h3>"Break through" to overseas markets</h3>
"Shouting the world to eat lychees" has allowed many lychee farmers and lychee traders to see the upcoming new world.
The new world that greets them is the world-renowned "Chinese fruit", the overseas hypermarket of "foreign atmosphere", the consumers of different colors and ethnic groups, the survival situation is excellent, full of sweetness and expansion; and when they look back, it is an anxious, tangled situation, full of the sourness of the price can not be sold, the product can not be sold.
According to the survey report released by the Lychee Longan Industrial Resource Platform of South China Agricultural University in March 2021, in the sample survey covering lychee industry practitioners in Guangdong Province, 47.4% of the respondents believed that "no stable merchants" was the main problem facing the sales process, 33.1% of the respondents said that they were "not satisfied with the price", 12.8% of the respondents complained that "they could not contact the merchants", and 61.7% of the respondents hoped to "help contact the distributors". Affected by sales expectations, more than half of the respondents' attitude towards 2021 operating income is biased towards "not optimistic".
An internal report by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Guangdong Province shows that due to the natural characteristics of sufficient moisture, short shelf life and concentrated marketing period, the sales radius of lychees in Guangdong is small and the problem of export difficulties has a long history, "even the sales volume in the northern market is very small, and most of them are sold in and around the province."
"The time has come (mature) to do so, even if the purchase price is not good, you can't pick it, you can't grow it hard, no one wants to let it rot." Gu Chengqin, president of the Lychee Association in Leiling Town, Chaonan District, Shantou City, said that due to the lack of necessary infrastructure such as cold storage, many lychee farmers have been in the dilemma of "either selling or rotting" for many years.
Lychee sales often have a unique phenomenon of "big and small years". "Big and small years" is a price fluctuation phenomenon similar to the "pig cycle", which is mainly manifested in the "big year" of increased production but the price cannot go up, "increase production without increasing income", and even cause regional slow sales.
Public reports show that before 2018, many lychee-producing areas in China have had many unsalable lychees. The ripe lychees rot on the ground and are not harvested, and the lychee farmers pour the fresh lychees they have picked into the trough of the sheepfold, and such a scene has been reported in the news.
The relevant person in charge of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Guangdong Province pointed out to the "Xinhua Daily Telegraph" earlier that in the past, the development of China's agricultural industry and the sale of agricultural products showed a primitive and extensive sales method, and many agricultural products were slow to sell, not really surplus, but the supply and demand information was closed in a place, a province or a region, forming a local surplus.
According to the analysis logic of the above-mentioned person in charge, in order to solve the sales problem and overcome the trap of "local excess", it is necessary to enter a broader market. Overseas markets with a very low sales share of lychees are worth a try.
Since 2019, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Guangdong Province has put forward an action plan for the construction of a "12221" agricultural product market system, declaring that it will "vigorously expand new sales channels in domestic and international markets" and promote the "going out" of Guangdong agricultural products. Lychees are established as the "leading" category. Judging from public reports, in 2019, Guangdong Province opened the "Litchi Silk Road" for the first time, which has the background of breaking the dilemma of slow sales.
The government action was quickly echoed by the industry. With the assistance of government departments, more and more lychee practitioners will expand their attention to overseas markets.
Chen Yaohua believes that the international market is an extremely commoditized market, and entering the international market can obtain stable orders and produce according to plan, rather than having to plant "gambling" as in the past, which did not have stable acquisition channels.
Gucheng Qin also said that selling to overseas markets can guarantee better channels, as well as more stable and higher prices. This means a more stable income.
According to the current overseas market practice, high-end lychee varieties such as guiwei and glutinous rice fin have more than tripled their prices after "going to sea", and every 500 grams is equivalent to more than 100 yuan. The difficulty of Americans' "lychee freedom" is no less than that of white-collar workers in first-tier cities in China.
Forward-looking judgments need to be proven by market practice. According to the above-mentioned internal report of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Guangdong Province, in the 2021 listing season, Guangdong Lychee ushered in a historic harvest, encountered the unfavorable situation of "intertwining the epidemic inside and outside, and sandwiching trade inside and outside", but finally achieved a good ending of "facing difficulties and achieving a historic breakthrough".
The most critical historic breakthrough is the "multi-point blossoming" of overseas markets. Public reports show that the main body of the Guangdong lychee market with districts (counties) and even townships as the unit is establishing overseas channels to disperse "breakthroughs" in the situation of "sales difficulties" and seek new sales channels for "going to sea": Yangjiang Yangxi Lychee has been exported to the North American market for the first time; Zengcheng Lychee has been exported to the Japanese market for the first time; Huizhou Town Long Lychee has been exported to the United Arab Emirates and Singapore for the first time; and Maoming City Lychee has realized cross-border e-commerce B2B exports to Canada.
The ancient city of Leiling Town, where Qin is located, due to the early "going to sea", has now achieved the sales miracle of "five five open" in the domestic and international markets. When most people only pay attention to the domestic market, the town of Shantou Special Economic Zone has taken a difficult step of "going to sea" as early as 18 years ago.
"Last year was a big year for the abundant production of lychees (in Leiling Town), and such a rich yield was more likely to be unsalable in the past." Ouyang Shi, secretary of the Leiling Town Party Committee, said, "But our sales ideas are very clear, well controlled, and we have achieved a bumper harvest and a good harvest, and the confidence of farmers has returned." ”
The government's ambitions don't stop there. The next roadmap of the "12221" market system is to "go out" as a small incision through lychee, and force the quality of the industry to improve through standardization and international competition; at the same time, the lychee industry that "plays the front" needs to explore the laws of international dissemination and international trade, form a replicable and generalizable model, and promote the "group going to sea" of Guangdong agricultural products such as pineapple, longan, citrus and grapefruit.
<h3>Compete with global fruits</h3>
Chen Yaohua also remembered the "door-to-door" scene of the purchasing manager of the "foreign supermarket". After learning the details of the name, color and texture of the lychee varieties full of Chinese poetry, the "foreign manager" finally asked the key questions. The question is not the price, but the stable supply and supply period data, and whether the supply period is enough for the supermarket to carry out sufficient new product marketing.
"Their requirements for taste are also very fine, not like the domestic taste to see the feeling, but very accurate sweetness, acidity data." He said, "They are more like selling fruits as industrialized commodities, pursuing standardization." ”
This is a lesson that the international market has taught to the "sea" people: standardization. With the control of standards, the "top masters" such as the "Sunkist" in the United States and the "Joyvo" in New Zealand firmly grasp the global high-end fruit trade market. The supply period proposed by the "foreign manager" is a clear "time" standard.
Extending the shelf life of lychees and winning time in the "first kilometer" is the key level of this "standard" game. Due to the high temperature environment, the "body temperature" of lychees is high, and once they are separated from the branch, they will continue to ferment to the point of "desaccharification" and even decay. In the past, lynong used to use branches and leaves to cover, soak with ice buckets and other methods to be more extensive, and the pre-cooling and preservation effect was not good. This is also the key reason why lychee fresh fruit was difficult to "go out" in the past.
Chen Yaohua also found that from lychee picking to loading and transportation, the picked lychees often suffer from hours of sun exposure, and "more than half an hour of exposure, the lychee preservation period is one day less."
Most lychee varieties have a shelf life of less than 72 hours, and shortening by half an hour is particularly critical. It is not difficult for lychee farmers to deduce that the most effective way to avoid sun exposure is to set up a cold storage in the field and directly put it into storage after picking. Therefore, in the 2021 picking season, with the assistance of government departments, Li Farmers have a cold chain facility built in Tiantou - "Tiantou Small Station". With the blessing of the new equipment, lychee farmers can pre-cool the lychees within 20 minutes after picking, rather than having to be exposed to the sun for hours as in the past.
The improvement of this key technology has allowed lychees sold to overseas markets to retain 90% of their taste.
But in the international market, the division of standards is not so simple. International trade involves different customs territories, different legal systems and inspection and quarantine standards, and some countries and regions also set up certain technical trade barriers. This is not only the encounter of lychees, fruits and even agricultural products, but also the encounter of many industrial products in many countries and regions.
As early as 2006, it was reported that Guangdong's lychee exports plummeted by 30% due to the inability to cope with technical trade barriers. The "roadblocks" that hit the export of lychees are mainly the inspection and quarantine standards for diseases and pesticide residues.
Such an encounter is put into this day, and the enlightenment for Guangdong lychee practitioners is "to follow international standards".
Li Zhuofeng, marketing director of Zhongli Group, said that only in the preservation link, lychees exported to the US market need to undergo continuous refrigeration monitoring of more than 1 degree Celsius for not less than 18 days; while lychees exported to the Japanese and Korean markets need to use Japanese and Korean standard steam low-temperature insecticidal technology for aseptic packaging.
Regarding the satisfaction of the "time" standard, Zhongli Group's exploration is to open a new lychee plantation in Hejiang, Sichuan, experiment with new varieties, and open up late-maturing varieties.
"Early maturing varieties are earlier, and late maturing varieties are later," Chen Yaohua stressed, "so that the concentrated marketing period of lychees can be extended from two months to five months." ”
The five-month market period is comparable to common imported fruits such as apples and citrus, which means that supermarkets have enough time to market the layout, without the situation that "the lychees are going to go to the market just after the advertisement is played, and consumers can't buy it if they want to".
These complicated "regulations" are beyond the imagination of many people in China.
Chen Yaohua viewed the deep-seated significance of "going to sea" in this way: "Only by going to foreign markets can we see the advanced international practices, can we refer to and study, and can we become bigger and stronger." ”
This is like the story of Guangdong manufacturing enterprises in the early days of reform and opening up. Embracing the international market, learning from the top international players to improve themselves, "Made in Guangdong" has created remarkable brilliance; today, agriculture represented by the lychee industry has also begun to embrace globalization and enter the modern classroom.
In this vigorous lychee "going to sea" action, the combination of industrial, market, technology and cultural brands reflects the super accumulation and migration ability of "economic excellent students" in all fields.
Southern Weekend Special Writer Dai Chunchen Southern Weekend Intern Shi Dengjiang Zhang Mengli