Grapes lead with freshness, extended harvest season boosts income
Original title: Shanxi Qingxu Riqian Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative -
"Riqian" grapes known for "freshness"
Drip irrigation for grapes at Riqian Fruit Industry Cooperative in Qingxu County (Network image: Shanxi Evening News)
"This one is called Xiangfei, a rose-flavored early-maturing variety that can hit the market around June 15; the ones on the ground have been thinned, and each bunch must not exceed 80 berries, with weight controlled at around 8 liang, so they have good market appeal." On May 3, Ding Tuobao walked out of the office and into the greenhouse. As he looked at the grapes and spoke, his expression came alive.
Ding Tuobao is the chairman of Shanxi Qingxu Riqian Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative. Riqian Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative is a national model cooperative for farmers' professional cooperatives. It currently has 230 member households, with the cooperative's grape planting area exceeding 7,000 mu, driving farmers to plant over 20,000 mu. In 2015, sales of Riqian-brand grapes reached 40 million yuan.
This is not the highest sales record for the Riqian brand. In 2013, sales of Riqian-brand grapes reached 48 million yuan; in 2014, sales reached 52 million yuan.
What does the Riqian brand sell? Old Ding's positioning is "freshness." Whether it is early spring or late autumn, fresh grapes are available all 12 months of the year. Through organic and standardized production, every grape is guaranteed to have bright market appeal; a new series is launched every half month to 20 days to cater to consumers' desire for freshness; in terms of business model, supermarkets are both sales terminals and front-line marketing stations for consumer experience. All of this demonstrates the core value of the Riqian brand: freshness.
Avoiding detours is the shortcut
Besides being known as the vinegar capital, Qingxu County also has excellent natural endowments for grape cultivation. It is one of the four famous grape-producing regions in the country, and Qingxu grapes are also a well-known regional public brand in Shanxi. However, it is Riqian Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative that has led the rapid upgrading of Qingxu grape varieties, transformed Qingxu's grape resource advantages into value advantages, and moved from product advantages to brand advantages.
Before returning home to grow grapes, Ding Tuobao was in the labor protection products manufacturing business; at that time, Qingxu County's grapes were only on the market for 20 days, following the traditional industry path of making money if sold and losing money if not.
His industrial experience made Old Ding feel that this approach was "unbearable." Being able to sell grapes all 12 months of the year became the simple ideal that united him and his fellow villagers in connecting with supermarkets.
Ding Tuobao had grape cultivation skills. After several years of exploration, from greenhouse grapes hitting the market in May, to arched-shed grapes, to open-field grapes, the season could be extended to before November, stretching the grape harvest period to 6 months. Combined with the application of storage technology, the cooperative achieved all-weather operation with fresh grape sales year-round.
"Entering supermarkets means high-end sales, requiring good quality and good taste." Riqian Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative is the only entity in Shanxi to have obtained organic grape base certification. From the use of V-shaped grape trellises to ensure ventilation between vines; to fruit thinning to ensure each grape's nutritional growth and good commercial quality, so that each bunch has the same number of berries, achieving standardized growth for Riqian grapes - Old Ding's efforts in grape cultivation techniques have all become solid support for the quality of Riqian-brand grapes.
"There are no shortcuts in agriculture. After choosing the direction of brand agriculture, every detail must be done solidly. Avoiding detours is the biggest shortcut." With over a decade of experience in the Qingxu grape world, Ding Tuobao has seen many rises and falls, becoming both a survivor and a winner among those who started at the same time.
Seeking differentiation is also a form of cooperation
"No matter how much you love a food, eating it every day gets tiresome. You have to constantly change flavors and varieties to satisfy consumers' demand for freshness." Ding Tuobao said.
Qingxu's Longyan grape is an old variety. Starting in 2004, as new grape varieties hit the market, consumers all rushed to the novelty priced at 3 yuan, and the price of Longyan grapes suddenly dropped to three or four jiao. In 2013, after new varieties expanded, consumers began to miss the taste of their childhood. That year, instead, the old Longyan variety sold for 3 yuan, while some new varieties sold for only 2 yuan.
Organizing production around consumers' demand for freshness, with diversified variety flavors rotating in production to constantly stimulate consumers' taste buds, became the production model of Riqian Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative. Ding Tuobao's own base has 70 grape varieties with different flavors in reserve, including rose flavor, strawberry flavor, muscat flavor, mint flavor, seedless types, multi-colored types, and more.
Every year, Old Ding changes the varieties. When uniformly supplying seedlings, he deliberately avoids concentrated planting of a single variety, having cooperative farmers each plant two or three different varieties, making differentiated planting and staggered maturation a cooperative consensus.
In sales, Old Ding adopted a method of promoting one series every 15 to 20 days as a cycle, giving each household's grapes their own main promotion period, and also avoiding members arguing red-faced over whose grapes to sell first.
Sales terminals are also marketing front-lines
2015 was the first year of formal operation for Riqian Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative's grape-picking garden. During the operating period from mid-June to mid-October, visitor traffic reached over 20,000 person-times, and sales revenue reached 4 million yuan. This was a standout achievement in the just-emerging leisure agriculture of Qingxu County.
"Where does the visitor traffic come from?" the reporter asked.
"Each supermarket's specialty counter is a promotional point for the picking garden. We give customers some discount cards. The company's product quality inspectors serve as tour guides and also handle writing promotional materials, which ensures they can effectively communicate the brand's core value to those experiencing it."
"Look at these grape corridors and picking sightseeing greenhouses. They use sparse planting to make it convenient for consumers to take photos or group pictures; many varieties are planted, with different colors interspersed, which adds to the visual beauty during the experience. These sensory pleasures all become motivation for picking and purchasing. Even if they don't have a chance to come picking in the future, it will lock in their consumption habit of going to the specialty counter to buy our brand's grapes." When talking about the "grape business," Ding Tuobao is forward-thinking and does not feel like a 62-year-old at all.
Organizing product production based on consumers' diverse needs; building a year-round supply chain for products with the market at the core; using the brand as a lever, from what to sell, to whom to sell, to how to sell, creating an interconnected experiential sales model - Riqian-brand grapes, against the backdrop of large fruit price fluctuations last year, have increasingly highlighted the value advantages of brand agriculture. (Staff Reporter Wu Jinbin)