Longjiaquan township sells premium apples by the fruit, not the kilo

While apple output rose nationwide this year and purchase prices for ordinary fruit fell in main producing areas, growers in Longjiaquan township, Yishui county, Linyi, East China's Shandong province, are selling Venus Gold apples for 10 yuan.

Wu Yuzhen, a grower in Yingpan village by the Bashan Reservoir, held up a golden apple: nearly 500 grams each, with adequate sugar content, regular shape and good skin finish. He sells more than 10,000 such apples a year and cannot keep up with demand.

His path there was not direct. A former fisherman who traveled to reservoirs across the country, he saw red apples on a hillside in Yiyuan county one autumn and applied for land to plant them, receiving about 10 mu of sloping land by the reservoir. For the first seven years he grew Pink Lady apples with almost no income, and even at full production earned only about 5,000 yuan per mu.

In 2016 he learned that Venus Gold had won a gold award at an apple expo in Weihai. He traveled there hoping to buy a few trees to try, but found the grower sold only saplings, at 65 yuan each. A local fruit expert grafted nine trees for him, and the first years produced small, astringent fruit. In 2019 the effort paid off: he entered the second Yishui apple competition, and the two boxes he brought the first day sold out on the spot, prompting him to pick two more boxes overnight for the contest. He won a gold award.

Guo Lixia, director of the township's agriculture and rural affairs office, said the township has 5,800 mu of apple orchards, including 2,200 mu of Venus Gold, 1,200 mu of Xiangfei, 1,200 mu of creamy Fuji and 1,200 mu of premium Fuji. Diversified varieties with staggered growing and selling seasons extend the harvest and market period, helping growers hedge against price troughs.

Li Jianhong, head of a family farm in the township, switched her 400 mu of Red Fuji to five varieties including Luli, Xiangfei, Ruixue and Venus Gold, extending the ripening period from mid-to-late October to July through November. Zhang Xiankun, a grower at a fruit cooperative, sells more than 100 mu of premium Red Fuji at retail prices of 7 to 10 yuan per kilogram, targeting the mass market, with two buyers from Anhui and Henan having contracted his entire orchard.

In 2024 the township established a fruit and vegetable cooperative union covering more than 3,000 mu of orchards in six nearby villages, with An Yujun as chairman. The union pools fragmented supply into a single trading interface: large buyers are reluctant to deal with individual growers, who lack bargaining power. Through the union, growers buy inputs collectively — one purchase of 60 tons of processed manure saw Wu take 20 tons — and sell collectively. In autumn 2024 a buyer from Anhui purchased 70,000 to 80,000 jin (35,000 to 40,000 kilograms) at more than 1 yuan per jin above the local price. The union also channels substandard-looking but sound fruit to a local biotechnology company for apple chips and freeze-dried products under an order-based agriculture model with a floor purchase price, benefiting more than 500 households with average annual income growth of 16,000 yuan ($2,250).

The township's agritourism brand "Lakeside Below the Mesa" covers six administrative villages and receives more than 400,000 visitors a year. Zhang Shuting, who runs an intangible cultural heritage root-carving workshop in Nanhuang village, added apple picking to her study tour courses, helping growers sell more than 5,000 kilograms of apples last year. Older growers, she said, cannot carry loads or chase markets, so when children come, an orchard of several mu can be picked clean in a day.

Apples are also sold as part of a "six treasures of the lakeside" line alongside canned goods, honey and wild jujube tea. A family farm offers a gift box of six apples and six peaches, and a 12-fruit Xiangfei premium box sells for 118 yuan ($16.6). Yishui apples hold national geographical indication status and were added to the EU's second batch of protected Chinese geographical indications in 2020.

"On a single tree, apples can be sold by weight to wholesalers, packed by the fruit into premium gift boxes, sliced and freeze-dried, or picked by visitors and taken home. Behind each method is a different value network and pricing logic," said Cai Yugen, Party secretary of the township. "The key is whether you are willing to think one step further and walk one step further."

Editor：韩蒙蒙