Reading guide: Persimmon was originally just a "small specialty" in Fuping County, Shaanxi, but now it is one of the pillar industries of local wealth and income. In September 2022, Fuping County joined hands with Nongben Consulting to plan and implement the brand upgrade of "Fuping Persimmon", and "Fuping Persimmon Sweet China" and "Authentic Fuping Persimmon Recognize the Fuzi Mark" came into being. Taking this as an opportunity, Fuping persimmons became popular all over the country through "national communication", completing the gorgeous transformation from "local specialty" to a well-known brand in the country. As the "hometown of persimmons", Fuping County also took advantage of this to "become famous overnight", attracting attention from all walks of life. In April this year, the National Rural Revitalization Administration issued a rural revitalization briefing (Issue 72 of 2023, Issue 533 of 2023) of "Shaanxi Fuping Makes Every Effort to Do a Good Job in "Native Products"" to promote the brand building experience of Fuping persimmons to the whole country.
A night of cold dew and wind, persimmons hanging lanterns.
The upcoming autumn season has many limited-edition delicacies, and persimmons are one of them. Whenever you talk about delicious persimmons, they almost always come from Fuping, Shaanxi, which is known as the "hometown of persimmons".
The delicious part of autumn in "A Bite of China 3" also has a special content that belongs to Fuping persimmons.
The persimmon industry, which has low economic value, has made Fuping County successfully turn from a poor county to a rich county. Not only has an excellent industrial economy been built around persimmons, with an annual output of more than 40,000 tons; It not only contributes to half of China's persimmon industry, but also successfully brands the originally low-cost agricultural products.
By this year, the output value of the whole persimmon industry chain in Fuping County has exceeded 6.5 billion yuan, with an annual output of 280,000 tons of persimmons, and the annual export volume is more than 5,000 tons, including more local brands with sales of more than 100 million yuan.
The revitalization of rural industries has always been a problem, and the branding of agricultural products is even more difficult.
The hometown of persimmons in the Central Plains
Fuping County, east of the Weihe River in Shaanxi Province, is located in the transition zone between the Guanzhong Plain and the Northern Shaanxi Plateau, and is the largest persimmon producing area in China.
From a poor county with a shortage of food to an economically strong county with the largest persimmon producer, it took only more than 20 years for Fuping to grow.
Today, there are more than 170 farmer cooperatives composed of persimmon farmers, and the average annual income of each member of the cooperative is more than 100,000 yuan. In 2022, the fruit-bearing area of Fuping persimmons will be 180,000 mu, and the output will reach 280,000 tons.
In the early days, although Fuping County had a unique environment for growing persimmons and a long tradition of planting, people did not regard it as their main livelihood at first. As the most populous county in Shaanxi, around the 80s of the last century, people mainly made a living by growing food crops. In the era when grain was the key link, the persimmon trees in Fuping were cut down on a large scale and only planted sporadically in front of and behind the houses, only for the villagers' own food.
During the period of grain shortage, the state implemented unified purchase and marketing of grain products, and the proportion of unified pricing was as high as 926%, planting grain can also be regarded as drought and flood to ensure income.
However, with the advancement of reform and opening up, the relationship between grain supply and demand has also undergone major changes. In the mid-90s of the last century, the grain production capacity had reached the level of 1 trillion catties, and the supply and demand of agricultural products had changed from a long-term shortage to a roughly balanced total amount and a surplus in bumper years. As a result, the agricultural product market has changed from a seller's market to a buyer's market, and grain has begun to decline continuously, and the peasants' income from growing grain has also slowed down, and it is no longer a good way to generate income from cultivated land.
The turning point was in 1996, when the third phase of the national three-north shelterbelt project was launched, and Fuping County took persimmon trees as the main tree species for returning farmland to forest, and with the help of national policies, persimmon planting began to be vigorously promoted. Most of the hundreds of villages in Fuping County make a living from growing persimmons.
However, soon a new problem arose, and the persimmon production increased, but it could not be sold at the price it should have.
Compared with apples, bananas, watermelons and pears, persimmons are still a niche fruit, and once presented a situation where there is output but no increase in income: there are no merchants to come to the door, the processing scale is small, and Fuping people have to ride cars and motorcycles to Tongchuan and Xi'an to sell goods. In the case that the consumer market has not yet been opened, the persimmon industry at that time did not bring much considerable economic benefits to the local area.
In China, persimmons for deep processing account for less than 10% of the total production. In South Korea next door, persimmons can be processed into dozens of products such as persimmon vinegar, persimmon tea, persimmon energy drinks, persimmon ice cream, and clothing with persimmon dyes. It is also used as an ingredient in tea, energy drinks, medicines, toiletries, skin care products, and other products.
It was not until the arrival of Korean businessmen that the sales of Bupyeong persimmons changed qualitatively, and they began to have a stable overseas business, with annual sales of more than 1,000 tons of persimmons.
At the beginning of the millennium, South Korean businessmen in Fuping took all the persimmons according to the order, and the price rose all the way, from 2 yuan to 6 yuan a catty, and the villagers devoted themselves to planting persimmons, and the persimmon processing industry in Fuping entered a new height. Villagers make persimmons from house to house, and the output has risen sharply.
It can be said that it was the intervention of Koreans that officially opened the prelude to the persimmon industry in Bupyeong.
Ten years of not making money
But in fact, the Fuping persimmons, which are sought after by foodies from other places, did not make local farmers earn money at first.
For more than ten years, the pricing power of Bupyeong persimmons has been pinched by Korean businessmen, and the Bupyeong people themselves cannot control the ** of persimmons.
When Koreans first entered Bupyeong, the persimmons** given could still leave a lot of profit margins for growers and processors. From four catties of raw persimmons to one catty of persimmons, there is a profit of about two yuan, but such a ** only lasts for four or five years.
Koreans come from afar not to help the poor with good intentions, and the initial profit is to better fatten resources. When the Koreans' purchase channels have matured, the production of persimmons has steadily increased, and even the number of processors has been in place, the business of persimmon purchase will be "fattened".
The same situation is similar to Yunnan coffee, where foreign capital first used large-scale purchases in the early stage to coax villagers to plant coffee trees, and then sharply reduced prices to suppress profits.
When the supply of resources exceeded demand, the villagers were in a hurry to sell persimmons, and the channel was in the hands of buyers, at this time, the Koreans began to close the net.
It controlled through mature channels, conducted a detailed investigation of the market, and after accounting for the persimmon ** and labor costs of the year, it set a purchase price that was only slightly higher than the cost, and controlled the profits that the villagers could get at only a few cents per catty.
Koreans are very clever and can keep the ** low because they do not buy finished persimmons directly, but buy persimmons that are not yet fully ripe as primary agricultural products. Every year, as soon as the persimmons bear fruit, they find a local broker to buy them at a price. Koreans don't like frosted persimmons, but take advantage of the cheapest to purchase first, and in the process of transporting them to South Korea, the persimmon frost on the persimmons is naturally formed.
Due to the narrow market and low demand for persimmons in China at that time, the pricing power of persimmons was still held by Korean businessmen for many years, even though farmers' profits were pressed to a thin level.
Koreans love persimmons, and persimmons produced in Bupyeong once occupied more than 80% of the South Korean market, but persimmon farmers are the most powerful and least profitable part of the entire persimmon industry chain.
This continued until 2012.
In 2012, the purchase of persimmons dropped sharply due to the large number of persimmons purchased by Korean businessmen in the previous year and a lot of inventory in their hands. However, the market information generated by the large number of purchases in the previous year led to an unprecedented amount of persimmon production in 2012, and a large number of persimmons were piled up in Fuping County for a time.
Fuping people, who were originally Xi to door-to-door acquisitions, began to take the initiative to look for the market. Even the local ** also actively contacted the provincial and municipal radio stations to promote the unsalable persimmons, and sent salesmen to bring persimmons to coastal areas....Kicked out of the initial channel of the domestic market.
The following year, Korean businessmen lost their pricing power to Bupyeong persimmons, the domestic market scale was opened, pricing became diversified, and with the arrival of the Internet bonus period, thousands of persimmon sellers appeared on the market.
From agricultural products to commodities
After the change of market trend in 2013, the purchase of persimmons jumped to 12 yuan, nearly doubled. After 2017, because of the discouragement of persimmons, Koreans have basically stopped in Bupyeong, but Buyeong's persimmons sell better.
In addition to taking back pricing power from South Koreans, the biggest change factor is that Bupyeong persimmons have completed the upgrade from primary agricultural products to commodities.
At present, there are few big brands similar to overseas Zespri (kiwifruit), Sunkist (sweet orange), and Dole (fruits and vegetables), not because domestic agricultural products are bad, but because of the lack of "commercialization of primary agricultural products". It must be commercialized in order for agricultural products to have the conditions for building brands and the upgrading of related industries, otherwise they can only be primary agricultural products that are sold by the pound.
In terms of building the brand of agricultural products, Fuping County relies on "Bo Quantity", and it is the people of the county who jointly export traffic. It does not focus on its own brand, but everyone is unified to build momentum for the regional public brand of "Fuping Persimmon".
From late October 2022, the official of Fuping County has taken the lead, advocating that every Fuping person conceive and create persimmons for the whole people.
For example, the Qinhua performance artist, the winner of the "Plum Blossom Award" for Chinese drama, and the singer from Fuping co-created "Persimmon Red"; Dafang Tianxi, Dafu and other Fuping persimmon enterprises, the creation of the short ** "Fuping persimmon departure ceremony", etc., have excellent traffic on several major platforms such as shaking, micro and fast.
At the same time, there are countless personal works, but whether it is official or personal, they all share the super slogan of "Fuping Persimmon Sweet China".
According to today's online traffic**, the advertising effect of these short ** is equivalent to saving millions of advertising costs, and Fuping persimmons have also become a model for the "national communication" of regional public brands of agricultural products.
The building of regional public brands is the backer of the brand building of agricultural products. It is easier to first support the regional identity of the product in the market ("persimmon should recognize Fuping"), and then make a brand on the basis of the recognition of the consumer market.
With a brand, there can be a premium, agricultural products can only be discriminated against, but commodities can be discriminated against.
In the past, the problems of "persimmon high quality and low price, low added value of products" have also been solved with the commercialization of persimmons.
In terms of sales, the persimmon cooperatives in Fuping take the size of the persimmons, the thickness of the persimmon frost, and the sugar content as the core indicators, and divide the persimmons into four grades according to the standards for different markets.
The first level is a persimmon cake with a large size and high thickness of persimmon cream, and the packaging form will be packaged independently to make it a gift, which is used to face the high-end custom market and enterprises and institutions; The second level is medium-sized persimmons, which are mainly sold to e-commerce platforms; The third level is the most common persimmon, which is mainly used in the community**, and is sold in local low-end supermarkets. As for the fourth-grade persimmons, the appearance is already poor, and they are made into processed products such as persimmon jam and persimmon wine, which cannot be seen in their original form.
At present, the domestic persimmon processing has not yet achieved large-scale mechanization, labor costs are still high, through product segmentation, accurate positioning of the market, persimmon can achieve high quality and high price.
For example, the Daifuku Cooperative in Fuping County, which supplies three persimmons in small packages of 100 grams to FamilyMart for 99 yuan, which seems not expensive, can actually be converted to nearly 50 yuan a catty, far exceeding the average market price.
When a persimmon completes the transformation from agricultural products to commodities, it is also demonstrating the key to the qualitative leap of countless rural economies.
From December 5th to 7th, the 2023 Fuping Persimmon Festival and the 2nd Fuping Persimmon Global Distributor Conference will be held in Fuping, the hometown of persimmons in China. During the conference, a series of wonderful activities will be held, such as the exhibition of the history of the Fuping persimmon industry and the achievements of rural revitalization, the investigation of the whole industry chain of Fuping persimmon, and the 11th National Seminar on persimmon production and scientific research progress, so as to introduce the development of the Fuping persimmon industry in an all-round way. Bring channel buyers to visit the site to understand the planting, processing and packaging of Fuping persimmons, and taste authentic and high-quality Fuping persimmons. Build a cooperation and exchange platform for channel buyers and local persimmon production enterprises and cooperatives in Fuping, promote the accurate docking of high-quality Fuping persimmon production and marketing resources, and explore new business opportunities and market potential.
2 days to go until the opening of the conference! Welcome everyone to continue to pay attention to the 2023 Fuping Persimmon Festival and the 2nd Fuping Persimmon Global Dealer Conference!
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