JD Vegetables Are Coming: After Running Chickens, Liu Qiangdong Turns to Japanese Technology to Grow Vegetables

Last month, Liu Qiangdong showcased the JD Running Chicken innovative poverty alleviation project on his personal Toutiao account. It is reportedthat each year JD Finance provides loans to nationally registered poor households, giving each household about one hundred chicks, with the requirement that they must be free-range and wear chicken leg bands for step-count monitoring. For those that run more than one million steps, JD promises to buy them back at three times the local price.

Liu Qiangdong said, "Normally they can only sell for a few dozen yuan in the local towns, but we buy at over one hundred, with certified slaughtering and layer upon layer of testing! The current selling price is 169 yuan per bird."

In addition to Running Chickens, JD has also ventured into vegetable production, with Japan's Mitsubishi Chemical set to provide it with plant factories and cultivation technology.

According to Japanese media reports, JD Group will cooperate with Japan's Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Group in the field of plant factories. It is reportedthat JD will use its own cultivation and its own logistics network for delivery, emphasizing the freshness, safety and peace of mind of the products。

JD plans to build a plant factory of about 10,000 sq m in Tongzhou, Beijing, putting it into operation before the spring of 2018, with an investment of about 800 million yen (about 49 million yuan).

Mitsubishi Chemical will provide a hydroponic cultivation system, as well as technical guidance in seed selection, sowing, harvesting and packaging.

Data shows that Mitsubishi Chemical's plant factory business has annual sales of 1.5 billion yen, and in 2014 it established a joint venture in China, entering the Chinese market.