Hema Fresh Headquarters to Relocate to Shanghai with New Industrial Base

According to a news report on sina.com, Hema Fresh, the “new retail” supermarket owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, recently announced that it will relocate its headquarters from Hangzhou to Shanghai’s Pudong New District, where it also plans to invest $100 million in establishing an internet-assisted industrial base.

At the launch ceremony, Hou Yi, vice president of Alibaba Group and founder of Hema Fresh, stated that the new industrial base will cover an area of 10 hectares with an estimated annual revenue of more than $1.4 billion. Expected to go into operation in 2022, the base is intended to become a world-class processing and distribution hub for fresh products by integrating advanced technologies in unmanned automation, 5G mobile networks, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, blockchain and big data.

Hema Fresh will also join hands with the Shanghai municipal government to build a number of Hema Villages in Hangtou town, Pudong district. These villages will produce agricultural products to serve the needs of all Hema outlets throughout China. The first such village was established in Bake village, Danba county, Sichuan province. This innovative means of production soon gained momentum and spread to Hubei, Jiangsu, Shandong and Hebei provinces, and even crossed China’s borders to spring up in Rwanda.

These villages will resonate with the new industrial base as well, creating a digitally driven supply chain to further roll out Hema’s new retail mode. At that time, at least eight leading enterprises, 20 agricultural cooperatives and 44 family farms will be brought into the Hema ecosystem, thus helping all parties to realize accelerated development.

Hema opened its first store in Shanghai Jinqiao International Commercial Plaza in January 2016. The company currently boasts more than 220 outlets in 23 Chinese cities. The firm has also disclosed that it intends to open another 100 member stores and 100 mini shops this year.

Image: Hema Fresh

This article was translated from Chinese. Read the original article.