40% less Chinese chestnuts, price 30% up

Export market demand feeble

"Due to the weather this year, a great reduction of the production of chestnuts has occurred all over China. Up to 40% less Chinese chestnuts are appearing on the market. Compared to the price of 9000 RMB per ton last year, the current market price is up by 30% at 12,000 RMB per ton," says Mr. Ren Yuwei, CEO of Tai'an Xinliyuan.

Price keeps rising

"The sudden upward motion of the market price is caused by the significant reduction of the supply volume on one hand. But on the other hand, it is also the result of the production material for the cultivation of Chinese chestnuts becoming more expensive. The production material had a price of 3 RMB in September. In October it became 4 RMB and continued to rise to 5 RMB in November. Without any doubt, this has also pushed the price further up at the end of the production season.""The production period of Chinese chestnuts starts in June. It ends in September. After that, the harvesting season begins. A large benefit of the chestnuts is that they endure long-term storage very well. A fresh chestnut can be preserved without a problem for a year at -2°C. The export season starts mid-September and lasts until the end of November."

Strong demand on Chinese market

"Because the demand from the Chinese market is rather low, 80% of the chestnuts we produce are sold to the wholesale markets of first-tier and second-tier cities in China such as Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing and others. Only the remaining 20% is sold to the Middle East, such as Israel. Even though the demand wasn't very high this year at the Dutch market, it still shows an increase compared to last year. We estimate that the situation will be even better next year. Moreover, compared to other competitors on the foreign market, like the chestnuts from Spain, the superiority of the Chinese chestnuts is rather obvious when it comes to price and quality. Especially Dandong chestnuts, which are rather big, are often preferred by foreign consumers.""Tai'an Xinliyuan was founded in 2008. The company is located in Dandong city and it has adopted a 'factory+farmers+cooperative' model of operations. It integrates production, processing, cold storage and packaging into one unified and modern enterprise with packaging factories and storehouses in Dandong and Tai'an. At present, the yearly production of the Shandong province is 30,000 tons to 50,000 tons of Chinese chestnuts every year. Our cooperative has a production volume of 5000 tons per year."

Source: http://www.freshplaza.com/a