Why is Qingxu County, Shanxi's grape so little known
"This one is called Xiangfei, a rose-flavored early-maturing variety that can hit the market early around June 15; the ones on the ground have been thinned, and each bunch must not exceed 80 berries, with the weight controlled at around 8 liang, so that it looks appealing." On May 3, after leaving the office and entering the greenhouse, Ding Tuobao's expression became vivid as he looked at the grapes and spoke.
Ding Tuobao is the chairman of the Shanxi Qingxu Riyi Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative. The Riyi Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative is a national model cooperative for farmers' professional cooperatives. It currently has 230 cooperating farming households, with a cooperative grape planting area of more than 7,000 mu, driving a farmer planting area of 20,000 mu. In 2015, sales of Riyi-brand grapes reached 40 million yuan.
This is not the highest sales record for the Riyi brand. In 2013, sales of Riyi-brand grapes reached 48 million yuan; in 2014, sales reached 52 million yuan.
What does the Riyi brand sell? Old Ding's positioning is "fresh." Whether early spring or late autumn, fresh grapes are supplied all 12 months of the year; through organic and standardized production, every grape is guaranteed to have an appealing appearance; a new series is launched every half month to 20 days to cater to consumers' demand for freshness; in terms of business model, supermarkets are both sales terminals and front-line stations for consumer experience marketing. All of this demonstrates the core value of the Riyi brand: fresh.
Avoiding detours is the shortcut
In addition to being known as the vinegar capital, Qingxu County also has excellent resource endowments for grape cultivation. It is one of the four famous grape-producing areas in the country, and Qingxu grapes are also a well-known regional public brand in Shanxi. However, it is the Riyi Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative that has led the rapid upgrading of Qingxu grape varieties, turned Qingxu grapes' resource advantage into a value advantage, and moved from a product advantage to a brand advantage.
Before returning home to grow grapes, Ding Tuobao made labor protection products; at that time, Qingxu County's grapes were on the market for only 20 days, following the traditional industry path of making money if sold while walking around and losing money if not.
His experience in industrialization made Old Ding feel that doing things this way "was more than he could bear." Being able to sell grapes all 12 months of the year became his simple ideal of joining with fellow villagers to connect with supermarkets.
Ding Tuobao had grape-growing techniques. After several years of exploration, from greenhouse grapes coming on the market in May, to arched-shed grapes coming on the market, to open-field grapes coming on the market, the season could continue until before November, extending the grape picking period to 6 months. Coupled with the use of storage technology, the cooperative achieved all-weather operation with year-round fresh grape sales.
"Entering supermarkets means high-end sales, so quality must be good and taste must be good." The Riyi Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative is the only unit in Shanxi to have obtained organic grape base certification. From the use of V-shaped grape trellises to ensure ventilation between the grapes at each plant spacing; to fruit thinning to ensure each grape grows nutritiously and has good marketability, thereby making every bunch of grapes have the same number of berries and enabling standardized growth of Riyi grapes, Old Ding's efforts in grape cultivation techniques have all become hard support for the quality of Riyi-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 more than ten years of experience in the Qingxu grape world, Ding Tuobao has seen many rises and falls, and became both a survivor and a winner among those who started at the same time.
Seeking difference is also a way of cooperating
"No matter how much you love eating something, you'll get tired of it if you eat it every day. You have to constantly change flavors and varieties to satisfy consumers' demand for freshness." Ding Tuobao said.
Qingxu's Longan grape is an old variety. Starting in 2004, as new grape varieties came on the market, consumers all rushed toward the novelty priced at 3 yuan, and the price of Longan grapes suddenly dropped to three or four jiao. In 2013, after new varieties expanded, consumers again began to miss the taste of childhood. That year, instead, the old variety Longan sold for 3 yuan, while some new varieties sold for only 2 yuan.
Organizing production around consumers' demand for freshness, with diversified flavors and varieties rotated in production to constantly stimulate consumers' taste buds, became the production model of the Riyi Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative. Ding Tuobao's own base has reserved 70 grape varieties with different flavors, including rose flavor, strawberry flavor, musk flavor, mint flavor, seedless types, multi-colored types, and so on.
Every year, Old Ding changes the varieties. When supplying seedlings uniformly, he deliberately avoids concentrated planting of a single variety, having the cooperative's farming households each plant two or three different varieties, making differentiated planting and staggered maturation a cooperative consensus.
In sales, Old Ding adopted the method of promoting one series as the main focus in a 15-to-20-day cycle, giving each household's grapes their own main promotional period and also avoiding members arguing red-faced over whose grapes should be sold first.
Sales terminals are also front-line marketing stations
2015 was the first year of formal operation for the Riyi Fruit Industry Professional Cooperative's grape-picking garden. During the operating period from mid-June to mid-October, visitor traffic reached more than 20,000 person-times, and sales revenue reached 4 million yuan. In the just-starting leisure agriculture of Qingxu County, this was unmatched.
"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 are both tour guides and responsible for writing promotional materials, and so on. This ensures they can effectively spread the brand's core value to the experiencers."
"Look at these grape corridors and picking sightseeing greenhouses. They use sparse planting, making it convenient for consumers to take photos or group photos as keepsakes; many categories are planted, with different colors interspersed, which can increase the visual beauty during the experience. These sensory pleasures will all become the driving force for picking and purchasing. Even if they have no chance to come picking in the future, it will still lock in their consumption habit of going to the specialty counter to buy our brand's grapes." When talking about the "grape scripture," Ding Tuobao is forward-thinking, not giving the impression of a 62-year-old at all.
Organizing product production on the premise of consumers' diverse needs; building a year-round supply chain for products with the market at the core; using the brand as the lever, from what to sell, to whom to sell, to how to sell, and creating an interconnected experiential sales model, Riyi-brand grapes have made the value advantage of brand agriculture increasingly prominent against the backdrop of relatively large fruit price fluctuations last year.