"China: "Fruit tomatoes are in high demand"

"A species called fruit tomato, medium-size and high-sugar, is getting very popular in recent years. Compared with other ordinary tomatoes, fruit tomato is more expensive, and it tastes like a crunchy and sweet fruit. However, there are several restrictions on planting fruit tomato, e.g. the difficulty of plantation, the low-yield which is only 22.5 ton/ha, the higher planting cost, and the limited suitable areas for planting fruit tomato. All of these factors result in less plating area and limited supplies of fruit tomato in China," said Ding Song, Beijing Guanshu Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., in an interview with FreshPlaza.com.

"We have built a plantation base of fruit tomato in a greenhouse at Horqin Grassland in Inner Mongolia, which covers an area of 6.7 hectares. Our fruit tomatoes are mainly supplied to the e-commerce platform in Beijing and a Japanese supermarket in Chengdu. The supply season is from September of the current year till June of the next year. In order to continuously supply the market throughout the year, we are making efforts in planting, variety selection, technology application, and making sure the good quality of our products."

"The reason why we select Horqin Grassland in Inner Mongolia as our plantation base is mainly because it is the most suitable area for growing sweet crops. This area is located at 44 degrees north latitude, with a dry climate, and the temperature difference between day and night is as big as 13 to 16 degrees. There are more than 2,900 hours of light exposure throughout the year. In order to ensure the quality of our products, we exclusively use the seed variety provided by a Japanese tomato breeding company. In addition, with the concept of safety, nutrition, and deliciousness, we use non-GMO varieties and follow organic agriculture process, irrigate the tomatoes by milk, use cattle and sheep manure as organic fertilizers, and use bumblebees for pollination."

"Our fruit tomato has been in high demand since it was introduced to the market. In the future, as consumers income increase and the demand on healthy food grows, I believe that the demand for fruit tomato will continue to increase. To better serve consumers, we are looking for partners of plantation and distribution to expand supply of fruit tomatoes."