“Fruit Box was founded in 2009 in Ningbo at the East coast of China. We specialise in the design and production of branded boxes for the fruit industry. On a yearly basis we produce an estimated ten million boxes. Most of our products are sold within China, a minority of products are sold abroad. Chinese e-commerce is taking off. Branding and packaging is becoming more important for companies to be able to distinguish themselves from one other online. This trend fuels our growth” says Mr. Yibing Ren from Fruitbox.
"We also run an extensive business platform for orchards. We help them to promote their products and find potential buyers. We also provide services catering for special events, such as fruit festivals. Fruit festivals are popular in China. We have done some market research that shows each year 2,000 fruit festivals are being organised. To enhance our service, we fully employ the internet for our marketing and market reach. For example, we have recently opened a shop on TaoBao. In addition, we advertise on some widely browsed websites and cooperate with a couple of media organisations to promote ourselves.”
When talking about the company’s potential in the market, Mr. Ren is confident: “we are in a leading position. We have started operating on this market relatively early. We have an advanced business concept, stable customers and enough packaging and logistics resources. All this contributes to the growth of our company. One of our longstanding partners is Shunfeng, a blueblerry grower. For the design of their boxes we make sure we meet their storage and transport requirements. Blueberries are a soft fruit that cannot be under pressure during transport. As a result we designed a hard fruit box that protects the content.”
Fruitbox is active in China's big cities and also in remote areas such as Zhejiang and surrounding regions. “We cooperate with external logistic partners to supply orchards in remote areas. Like this we can also solve transportation problems if the orchards face such issues. Regarding the market, due the global recession our prices are now lower than they were a few years ago. Our sales volumes have not changed much.”
