Underdevelopment of products is behind the difficulty of selling

"the red dates laid down can't be sold, and the money for selling dates is not enough to hire workers to beat them, so they might as well hang them on a tree." Du Zhonggui, a villager of Lianhuachi Village, Kehu Town, Linxian County, Shanxi Province, was helpless and worried.

The Beginning of Winter after the Luliang Mountain, red dates hanging all over the branches, used to be the scenery, now is sad. Recently, the reporter found in the county that the deep-seated reason why jujube is cheap and hurting farmers is that the supply of jujube products is at a low level, and insufficient product development has led to a relative surplus of red dates in the county, which has also become the bottleneck of Linxian and even Luliang red dates.

Fresh dates used to sell for 5 yuan a jin, but now they can't even sell at a discount.

Du Zhonggui contracted 50 mu of jujube forest, and the output this year can reach 50,000 jin. More and more dates were accumulated, but few could be sold, so he had to quit his employees and deal with the dates in the yard first. He is not alone. Du Zhonggui's Hongjie Jujube Professional Cooperative currently has more than 20 members, and the jujube forest covers an area of more than 1000 mu, most of which are difficult to sell.

Shanxi Linxian red jujube has the advantages of small nucleus, thin skin, thick meat and so on. At present, the area of red dates in the county has exceeded 850000 mu, covering 17 townships, more than 400 villages and more than 370000 jujube farmers. The income of jujube industry has accounted for nearly half of the county's total agricultural output value, and more than 70% of farmers' income comes from jujube industry.

Du Zhonggui said: "in the past, fresh dates with good quality were sold for 5 yuan per jin and dried ones for more than 8 yuan, but now they can't even be sold at a discount."

Du Zhonggui calculated an account for the reporter that a worker costs 100 yuan a day, and it takes 70 cents to dry a jin of dates. Coupled with the early pruning and agricultural expenses, a jin of jujube sold at a price of 1 yuan can not even get back the cost. According to the data analysis provided by the jujube industry bureau of the county, the output this year is expected to reach 360 million jin, a new high in the past three years.

On the one hand, we cherish the sale, and on the other, we sell it cheaply. In 2011, Shanxi's red dates were also scarred. Three years later, Lvliangshan is another red jujube.

There are 170 "brands" of red dates among 170 business entities.

"Linxian large and small jujube processing enterprises and cooperatives have more than 170, jujube brands have more than 170, has not formed a regional image brand, market competitiveness is not strong." Miao Chengbing, deputy production manager of Shanxi Tianyuan jujube industry company, said.

"it is too expensive for jujube farmers to achieve year-round supply." Hongjie jujube professional cooperative president Xue Hailiang said. In terms of jujube storage, jujube farmers in Linxian County can be dried and stored in the yard, or they can rent an air-conditioned cold storage.

"as soon as you enter the cold storage, you lose money, and the cold storage fee for a box of red dates costs one yuan, and the cost is very high." Du Zhonggui said.

To make matters worse, the Postal savings Bank cancelled the loan to Hongjie Jujube Professional Cooperative. The cooperative had no choice but to borrow 300000 yuan at 3% interest to start the machine for drying.

Fresh jujube sales do not move, it is difficult to form a year-round supply chain. What about processing capacity?

In 2009, Kehu Town, a major jujube production town, built Shanxi-Shaanxi Jujube Professional Cooperative Park, forming an industrial chain of jujube production, processing and trading. Among them, there are 20 processing workshops with an annual processing capacity of 5 million kg.

"the cooperative park mainly carries out primary processing such as red jujube drying, and judging from the current market situation, it can barely maintain half of the processing volume this year." Li Baoming, deputy mayor of Kehu town, said.

In 2012, Linxian County established a red jujube industrial park, attracting and investing in more than 10 jujube processing projects, with an annual processing capacity of 280 million jin, accounting for 60% of the county's jujube output, including drugs, health products, food additives and other categories.

Tianyuan jujube industry, as the first processing enterprise, has five production lines, such as jujube beverage, candied fruit, concentrate extraction, dry powder and fruit pie, with more than 50 kinds of products. at present, the annual processing capacity reaches 2000 tons and converts 2500 tons of red jujube raw materials. "however, due to the shortage of funds, the infrastructure in the park has not yet been completed, red jujube processing stays in the previous small workshop, and the processing capacity is very limited." Introduction of Miao Chengbing.

The concept of product supply needs to be improved urgently.

At the invitation of the government, Wang Xiaobang, a famous e-commerce businessman, held a pre-sale in his Taobao store and later held a public welfare bazaar with little effect at the appeal of many media in Shanxi Province.

When Hao Zhuan-Xian, chairman of Huilong Market, Shanxi's largest agricultural products wholesale market, learned of this, he took the initiative to dock with the relevant departments of the county and offered an olive branch free of three years' rent to allow Linxian red dates to enter the market, which was also politely declined.

Consumers do not buy up or down, coupled with the lack of product marketing concepts, extensive products rely on e-commerce and traditional business routes, but also did not solve the knot of jujube sales. This means that the main reason for the difficulty of selling is not information asymmetry.

Li Jie, director of the Institute of Fruit trees of the Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that the market positioning of Luliang wooden jujube needs to be re-examined. Objectively speaking, wooden jujube is not an excellent variety among red jujube varieties, and it has no advantage under the impact of Xinjiang jujube. The planting scale of 2 million mu is more unsalable in bumper years.

A considerable number of employees of Xinjiang jujube are also from Shanxi. During the self-price scuffle, the concept of jujube as a woody grain has been put forward by Zhengzhou "good miss you" jujube industry for many years. What needs to be warned is that Shanxi, as a small miscellaneous grain kingdom, has not made an article on the deep processing of nutritional collocation and multi-species superposition; red jujube is still a variety for both medicine and food. Shanxi, the birthplace of Chinese medicine, has little development in this area.

Shanxi does not lack the support of technological innovation. The National Jujube Germplasm Resources Garden of the Institute of Fruit trees of Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences is the platform of jujube germplasm resources of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Agriculture. They developed technical patents for deep processing products such as jujube vinegar drink and red jujube brandy. So far, few people have asked.

This also confirms the saying that there is no shortage of needs, but the lack of eyes to find them. When there are problems in the market, entrepreneurs should first find the demand of the market, improve and develop products around the demand, and improve the level of supply market, which is not only the path of industrial upgrading, but also the way to end the difficulty of selling.