Yuping yellow peaches "go online" and sell out in 6 days at 25 yuan per jin

Yuping yellow peaches are large and plump, with thin skin, crisp flesh and a sweet, juicy taste. After hitting the market on August 3, they were sold online for the first time, at a unit price of 50 yuan per kg. By August 8, 60,000 kg had been sold both online and offline, with total sales reaching 2.44 million yuan.

“These past few days I've clicked the mouse until my fingers ached,” said Xia Kaishu, a major yellow peach grower in Wengyang Village, Zaojiaoping Subdistrict, Yuping Autonomous County, grinning from ear to ear. His family's 500 mu of yellow peaches yielded 40,000 kg this year. In just 6 days, 30,000 kg sold briskly online, while the remaining 10,000 kg was snapped up by fruit traders who rushed over after hearing the news.

Yuping yellow peaches are large and plump, with thin skin, crisp flesh and a sweet, juicy taste. In recent years they have risen to fame and become a calling card of Yuping, deeply favored by consumers. After hitting the market on August 3, they were sold online for the first time. By August 8, online sales had exceeded 3,000 orders. Offline sales were also booming. On August 6, a group of tourists from Chongqing drove to a yellow peach base to pick and buy, purchasing more than 40,000 yuan worth of yellow peaches in one go. Over 6 days, Yuping yellow peaches sold 60,000 kg both online and offline, with total sales reaching 2.44 million yuan.

Wu Kecai, head of the Yuping Xingsheng yellow peach base, explained that Yuping yellow peaches are difficult to fruit, require high-level cultivation technology, have a short harvest window, taste good and are highly nutritious. That is why they can sell at a unit price of 50 yuan per kg and still sell out in such a short time.

In recent years, Yuping has expanded its planting scale and developed yellow peach cultivation as an industry to drive people out of poverty and toward prosperity. This year, the Yuping yellow peach industry provided employment for 120 people from poor households, raising per capita income by more than 1,300 yuan. At present, the county's yellow peach planting area has expanded to 12,000 mu, and it is expected to reach full harvest successively after 2017. According to estimates, at peak fruiting the yield is 750 to 1,000 kg per mu, and total output can reach 9 million kg to 12 million kg.

The rapid growth of the yellow peach industry has been constrained by factors such as technology and the market. In response, Yang Dezhen, head of Yuping Autonomous County, proposed that yellow peach growers should pursue collective development, give full play to the role of industry associations, unify standards for technology, prices and product quality, and build the Yuping yellow peach brand; they should broaden sales channels and use e-commerce platforms to achieve simultaneous online and offline sales, fully boosting the effort to “bring yellow peaches out of the mountains” and into the homes of city residents.

Multiple departments including the Yuping Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Science and Technology Bureau and the Forestry Bureau joined forces, while the publicity department planned promotional efforts, to vigorously develop and promote the yellow peach industry. With yellow peach bases as units, cooperatives were formed. Following the guiding principle of “unified prices, unified trademark and brand, unified planting standards and unified management,” they embarked on a path of professional, large-scale, institutionalized and market-oriented yellow peach industry development, driving poor households out of poverty toward prosperity.

Wan Yuwen, supervisor of the Yuping Huangtao Fruit Industry Cooperative Union, said: “This year is the first year Yuping yellow peaches have been sold online. Although the results are very good, we still have a lot of room for improvement in promotion, technology, management and sales. Given the short harvest window for yellow peaches, the Yuping Huangtao Fruit Industry Cooperative Union plans to start ‘dual-channel’ presales in mid-March next year, offering customers different discounts in order of booking time. In addition, we will open physical experience stores to provide convenient services for customers to taste the peaches for free.” (Qin Songsong)