With Chu Orange enjoying a near-monopoly, how much longer can its high price last?
As China's most famous orange, Chu Orange has pushed the ordinary rock sugar orange to an unprecedented height, ranking first in China's fruit industry in both fame and price. At fifteen or sixteen yuan per jin, Chu Orange's price has long far exceeded its "rational value" as an orange. But the proud thing is that even such an obviously "irrational value" still follows the laws of the market, satisfying people's needs at different levels.
People are willing to pay a high price for Chu Orange simply because it is an orange "with a story": falling from the peak, rising from the trough, starting a business in old age, staying low-key despite great fame... Chu Shijian's legendary life has endowed Chu Orange with a legendary personal character... But is this really the whole reason Chu Orange has maintained its "irrational high price" for several years while still being in short supply?
What sets Chu Orange apart from most domestic fruits is precisely what makes it similar to most imported fruits: huge investment in the early production stage, relentless pursuit of quality during cultivation, and standardized management of the entire process... These form a huge difference from our traditional fruit production model. Chu Orange did not succeed merely by "trading on its face." Consumers' recognition of Chu Orange's "irrational value" is not just about consuming a Chu Shijian of the past, consuming a legend that already belongs to history; it is even more about consuming a Chu Shijian of the present: working the orchard steadily for years as if each day were the first, not rushing to pursue profit but striving for the best taste, introducing advanced scientific planting techniques and standardized management experience, and single-handedly leading the fruit growers of a whole region onto the right market track of honest prosperity... These are the efforts related to the "orange," and they are the present contributions of Chu Shijian as a fruit grower. Without a good orange, even the best story is in vain.
Unfortunately, most producers have not understood the real secret of Chu Orange's success. Even industry giants who could be called Chu Shijian's friends, such as Liu Chuanzhi and Pan Shiyi, are the same: with only investment and endorsement but lacking production and management, the bleak performance of Liu's Peach and Pan's Apple compared with Chu Orange proves that consumers are not all blindly consuming legends. As for those rock sugar orange growers on the market today who pass off their fruit as Chu Orange to raise prices, they are not only risking infringement but also unable to fool consumers for long, and in the end they will hardly achieve anything great.
In a market environment of general honesty, law-abiding behavior, and down-to-earth operation, a near-monopoly high price like Chu Orange's should not continue to exist for long. People should not simply envy, imitate, or even use illegal means to fake a "high price"; instead, they should truly follow the present efforts of the fruit grower Chu Shijian. Only then can Chu Orange's price return to rationality, and only then can Chu Orange, Wang Orange, Zhang Peach, Li Apricot... all bask in the spring sunshine together.