Lantao, one of China’s premium fruit importers, has opened its seventh distribution centre, in Qingdao.
The new Qingdao office is located in the Qingdao International Agricultural Products Market, in China’s Shandong province.
“Qingdao is an attractive market for us for a number of reasons,” said Lantao CEO John Wang, adding that with a population of nearly 100m, Shandong is one of China’s most populated and most affluent provinces. “In addition, as a port city, we can import fruit from North America, South America, South Africa and Australia directly to Qingdao, reducing our transit time and cost as compared to the normal channel through South China and trucking it north.”
Already established as a leading export province, Shandong produces ginger, garlic and organic vegetables for export to the US. Jim Provost, of US company I Love Produce, works alongside Lantao to export Chinese vegetables to North America and sees Lantao’s new office in Qingdao as a logical step to allow North American imports to be distributed throughout Shandong.
“Qingdao is the port and gateway for all of the produce we ship from China to North America,” said Provost. “So it is only fitting that we have now opened a Qingdao distribution facility that will allow us to bring premium fruit from the US and the world to the people of Shandong.”
Lantao now has operations in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenyang, Zhengzhou, Harbin and Qingdao.
