China Eastern Airlines will commence weekly charter flights for Northwest cherry shipments to China next week.
The airline, which successfully launched the first-ever charter flights for Chilean cherries to China last year, is now following up with the first programme of its kind for US cherry exports
Steven Fang of China Eastern Logistics told Asiafruit the service will launch from Seattle to Shanghai on 11 June and will continue on a weekly basis for three months thereafter. “We’ll be shipping 100 tonnes each week during the Northwest cherry season,” he said.
China Eastern Logistics, which is coordinating the shipments with US cherry grower-packer-shippers and export broker Alan Wang of SA International, expects to secure fast clearance for the fruit on arrival on Shanghai.
“The Shanghai local government is very interested to support these charter shipments because they want to develop a free trade zone in the future,” said Fang, who was talking to Asiafruit at the Asiafruit Market Insight conference in Hangzhou last week.
“Within a couple of hours of landing, the fruit will be transferred to Beijing and Guangzhou for sale in the wholesale markets and other channels.”
Wang told Asiafruit that SA International and China Eastern were working with Domex Superfresh Growers and Yakima Fresh as well as a few smaller cherry packers on the programme.
“It’s mainly online-oriented business with 10 row or larger cherries packed in 2.5kg gift cartons, four to a master pack,” said Wang. “The cartons will all be pre-printed in Northwest grower labels to assure Chinese consumers these are US-grown cherries.”
“The plan is to go slow at first to be sure that fruit quality is maintained through delivery as we want repeat orders,” he continued. “Once we’re confident of the system, we’ll increase the weekly volume. It’s a great opportunity for the industry to really build the market for Northwest cherries in China as it’s looking like the crop will be very large this year.”
Fang said a percentage of the fruit arriving is pre-sold by e-commerce companies, a rapidly developing sales channel for the high-value import business in China.
“We’re working on online promotions with a number of the key players in this sector, including Beijing-based companies JD.com and Womai.com,” he explained. “We’re also in talks with Yihaodian and expect to sign a deal with them imminently.”
JD.com, China’s leading online direct sales company, is already famous in the US, having debuted on the Nasdaq with a splash last Thursday, recording the largest initial public offering by a Chinese company in the US.
China Eastern plans to keep the charter shipments of cherries flowing even as the Northwest season winds down, as fruit comes online from British Columbia, Canada, which gained access to the Chinese market last year.
“After July, we’ll be trucking cherries down to Seattle from British Colombia for charter shipments to Shanghai,” Fang said.
