What kind of fruits are interesting for Taiwanese customers to eat? Which new varieties could you introduce to them? In such an abundant tropical fruit production area, how could you still make customers enthusiastic for other kinds of fruit from temperate zones? It might seem hard, but Penny Chang, from Carrefour Taiwan is daily working on importing new fruits to Taiwan, and is determined to introduce the Taiwanese customers to many more fresh fruits than they now have available.
“As far as I am concerned , diversity and alternatives in fresh imported fruits are two important factors for driving and boosting good performance. Always sourcing and providing new and healthy fruits in good quality with affordable and reasonable prices are my passion and for showing my appreciation for all the customers at Carrefour Taiwan. I have successfully introduced organic Hass avocados from the US, which are, for the very first time, certificated. Some avocados from the US have heavy metal pollutants. I, as a regular consumer of imported avocados, want to provide safer avocados for customers at Carrefour stores. “
“US figs are another new item that I tried to introduce to customers . There are very few locally grown figs and I found figs have the potential to become the next big thing after avocados. The feedback on figs from customers is very positive, but the shelf life of imported figs by air shipment lasts only 2 days. It’s a big problem for stores to maintain quality and control damage to imported figs. Therefore the supply to customers needed to be stopped until we found a solution. Once the solutions are found for longer shelf life, quality and damage controls, imported figs will definitely be launched again at all Carrefour stores in Taiwan.”
Imported fruits take up a big part of the fruit assortment in Carrefour stores. Imported fruits account for around 40 percent of the fruit and vegetables department at Carrefour stores. Vegetables account for 35-38 percent of the department. The remaining 22-25 percent is the contribution from the local fruits. “Imported fruits always have played an important role for Carrefour Taiwan and distinguish us from other retailers in Taiwan. Customers can have more alternatives and options for imported fruits at Carrefour Taiwan. Although the company’s strategy for the next 5 years will focus more on locally grown vegetables and fruits and organic fresh items, I believe that the preferences of customers for imported fruits will remain the same, as long as we keep providing imported fruits with good quality at attractive prices.”
