“Chilean cherries are now being imported by our company. We started last year in November. Although we also import from Australia and New Zealand, the supply from Chile is far higher, though their quality is a bit lower. Because of the high quality, people are still willing to pay a bit more for Australian and New Zealand cherries. But the supply is limited and to fulfil the high demand, we import almost 90% of our cherries from Chile.” Said April, Hema's Director in the Global Import Department.
“There was a big hailstorm in Chile, but it did not really affect the output of the Chilean cherries that much. Chile is a large producer of cherries and even though they had a setback with the hailstorm, they were still able to supply a lot of cherries. Not all the cherry producing bases in Chile were affected. We also have a special packaging for our cherries for Chinese New Year, because they are given as presents a lot during this time. It is a very important time to sell fruits in China and we see that our most popular boxes are the 2 and 5 kilogram,“ explained April.
“Currently we see that cherries are the best selling products in our shops. After cherries, strawberries are doing very well in the market. This is also a nice product to give away as present, or to consume yourself. China is not in season now for strawberries, but we get our supply from our partners in greenhouses, so we are able to offer our customers strawberries, even when they are out of season. Other products that are very popular now are oranges, apples, dragon fruit and kiwis.”
In December Hema organized a special week when they promoted their fruits originating from Chile. “We had special promotion actions, not only to promote Chilean products, but also to show our customers that we have a very varied range of products in our shops. It went quite well, and of course our Chilean products that week sold much better than in other weeks. The most important products we promoted during this week were: avocado, blueberry and cherry. At the beginning of January we also organized an Australia week, to promote our Australian products and show our customers that we have very varied products. Like Australian cherries, beef, seafood and wine.”
“When we started in 2016 we had 20 shops in China, but now we have 120 shops in 16 regions. Most of them are located in South, east and central China, like Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, so mostly in the bigger cities. In the west and north of China we do not have stores yet, though this could be a possibility for the future. Furthermore, a large part of our sales is done online, it takes up 60% of our total sales. We also have a special service, where we guarantee a delivery within 30 minutes if you are within 3 kilometers of a Hema shop. This is also a much appreciated service by our customers. We hope to keep improving our services and to keep on serving high quality and varied fruits.” Concluded April.
