"We started building our modern greenhouses for tomatoes and lettuce, a joint project with Prins Group, at the beginning of April. We are on schedule right now, so the whole project should be done around the end of September. We expect that the first batches of tomatoes and lettuce will enter the market around New Year's Day, 2018," states Dan Xu, manager of the Agricultural Development department of Beijing Urban Construction Group Co., Ltd.
"These greenhouses are located in Miyun, Beijing. The total production area is 3.3 hectares, of which tomato production takes up 2.2 hectares. We mainly produce small tomatoes of 30 grams, such as cocktail tomatoes. Our annual production volume is 600,000-700,000 kilograms. The production of lettuce takes up around 2,000 square meters. We produce different kinds of lettuce of 200-250 grams, such as butter lettuce and Romaine lettuce. Our annual production volume is 700,000 pieces."
"The main reasons that we chose to produce tomatoes and lettuce are, firstly, that, influenced by the environment, severe smog and cold temperatures, the supply of fruit and leafy vegetables in northern China is very small in winter. That leads to a gap on the market. Moreover, in the past few years, young consumers are more open to eating salads, but the taste and quality of tomatoes and lettuces used for these in western restaurants are bad. We hope that by trying this new production method for these two products, we can explore new sales channels."
"After our products have entered the market, we sell them to Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province. Apart from cooperating with western restaurants, supermarkets and well known e-commerce platforms, such as Jingdong and Tmall, we are also trying to manage our own e-commerce platform. Moreover, when the time is right, we want to open up conversations with large scale international vegetable companies, such as the Dutch Harvest House, to look at the possibilities for cooperation."
"In Beijing, there are not a lot of similar greenhouses. Compared to others, our industry is very clear. Apart from the financial aspects, the whole construction process of the greenhouses is done by our own team. The levels of quality, expertise and standardization are very high. The most important thing for us is to go steadily and surely. Recently, we have focused all our energy on building these greenhouses. If the market response is good, we will consider a second round of construction. As a large scale construction company, our goal is to have a design, construction and a team of the highest quality."
