Yidu’s Charter Vessels Deliver Chilean Cherries to Dalian

The run-up to the Chinese New Year festival is one of the traditional peak periods for fruit sales in China. This year, the popularity of Chilean cherries during this period was even more pronounced: their brisk sales led the fruit to become the brightest star across almost all retail channels.

On Jan. 20 and 22, two vessels chartered by Yidu Group and loaded with fresh cherries, nectarines and blueberries from Chile arrived at Dalian’s Dayaowan Port.

Against the backdrop of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions caused by port congestion, container shortages and vessel delays have become common challenges that all fruit traders around the world are currently facing. At a time when the Chinese New Year was just days away, completing customs clearance in a brisk manner so as to deliver fresh fruit to the market as early as possible turned into an even more challenging task.

Yidu Group got in touch with local customs officials long before the two vessels arrived. A green channel was also established at Dalian Customs with the help of Liaoning Port Group, Dalian Customs and the Dalian Municipal Government. As a result of this preparatory work alongside fast unloading operations aided by multiple digitization applications, the fresh products onboard were able to reach various retail ends with the highest degree of freshness.

Cherries, which are red in color, almost heart shaped, sweet in taste and available during the Chinese Spring Festival holiday, are considered by many among the best gifts for family members and friends. Regarding the cherries from these two shipments, Yidu worked with several premium Chilean fruit suppliers and implemented extremely rigorous quality standards with respect to variety, size, flavor and sweetness. Upon their arrival in Dalian, the fruit from these two vessels was soon delivered to the Guangzhou Jiangnan and Shanghai Huizhan fruit wholesale markets, as well as a dozen other major cities in China via the company’s own cold-chain distribution networks. Through online channels such as JD.com and Tmall and offline chain stores such as Yonghui Superstores and 7Fresh, all 10,000 metric tons of fruit onboard had completely sold out in just seven days.

For the sake of food safety and traceability from field to consumer, Yidu implemented a series of measures across the entire supply chain. All of the fruit samples collected from the two ships tested negative for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

These two ships also mark the first time that Yidu Group has purchased fruit from the place of origin and delivered it directly to Northern China with no stopovers. This business model has numerous advantages while the COVID-19 pandemic is still hampering the smooth operation of global logistics and commercial systems. Therefore, it is likely to be adopted by more fruit companies in the years to come.

Since its foundation, Yidu Group has become China’s leading fresh food supply chain manager, whose business scope covers logistics, finance and trade. The company has created a nationwide logistics network by using major ports across China, including Dalian Port and Shenyang Distribution Center to cover Northeast China, Zhengzhou Airport and Distribution Center to cover Central China, and Guangzhou Distribution Center to cover South China. This layout enables Yidu Group to provide clients around the world with swift, efficient, low-cost and one-stop cold-chain solutions. Moreover, owing to its rich experience in the fruit industry along with its inherent advantages in cold-chain management, the company has successfully introduced dozens of unique fruit brands and agricultural products to the Chinese market.

Images: Yidu Group

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