Japanese Sun Fuji Apples Selling for 60 Yuan Apiece in China

Japanese fruit has a reputation for its delicious flavor, premium quality and sky-high prices. A number of astronomically priced fruit varieties, such as strawberries and grapes, have been seen at Japanese fruit auctions in the past. The Japanese Sun Fuji apple recently joined this prestigious club when it entered the Chinese market for the first time. The first ever batch of imported Sun Fuji apples arrived in China at the end of last month, and this glamorous variety has already hit the shelves of some high-end supermarkets and WeChat sellers.

The Sun Fuji apple variety is reportedly extremely well known in Japan and is rarer than the Orin or Honey Peach apple varieties. The imported Sun Fuji apples are large in size with a shiny, all-red exterior, making them outstanding in terms of appearance alone. This brand of Fuji apples is cultivated using a no-bagging method, meaning that each apple is generously bathed in sunlight as it grows to maturity — hence the name “Sun Fuji.” The Sun Fuji apple variety is grown in Japan’s Aomori prefecture, a famous apple-producing region, and is considered the cream of the crop among high-end apples in Japan. In terms of growing techniques, aside from the lack of bagging, the apple farmers also harvest late to ensure that each apple fully ripens on the tree. This season, the apple-growing region has not suffered from any extreme weather such as typhoons or excessive temperatures, and these favorable weather conditions have resulted in the highest-quality crop of Sun Fuji apples that the area has seen in recent years. This apple variety, praised by Japanese fruit growers for its “incomparable” flavor, naturally also fetches some impressive prices. In a recent Japanese fruit auction, one box of 28 Sun Fuji apples reportedly sold for the hefty final price of 1.3 million Japanese yen (approximately 81,000 Chinese yuan or $12,500).

Sun Fuji apples are juicy, crisp and refreshing, with a pleasant balance of sweet and tart and a rich fruity aroma. Cutting one of these apples in half reveals its “candy heart” — a characteristic known as “watercore,” where the fruit contains an area of deep yellow, semi-translucent flesh surrounding the core. At present, imported Japanese apples are scarce on the Chinese market, and the current batch of imported Sun Fuji apples are all “special selection” apples, Japan’s top apple grade. Similar to domestic sales in Japan, the Sun Fuji apples that have begun appearing at some high-end supermarkets in China are also priced per unit, with individual apples selling for somewhere in the vicinity of 60 yuan (around $9.30). This is reportedly lower than current retail prices on the Japanese domestic market. There is precedent for imported apples in China being priced per unit — another Japanese variety, the Sekai Ichi (“world’s number one”) apple, previously made a splash in the Chinese fruit industry with its eye-watering price of 108 yuan (approximately $16.70) per apple. Now, with Sun Fuji apples hitting the market, Chinese consumers have another choice of premium apple to add to their purchasing options.

Images: Provided to Produce Report by a source

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