“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall fruit market this year has been sluggish. From growing to sales, each link of the supply chain has been facing various challenges in its operations different from previous years. As far as greenhouse tomatoes are concerned, sales performance earlier on is acceptable. However, with large volumes of open-field tomatoes flooding the market recently, the price of greenhouse tomatoes has dropped significantly, and the market is clearly oversupplied,” a tomato grower from Tongzhou, Beijing, said.
"I have five tomato greenhouses in Tongzhou, Beijing, and the supply period lasts from March to July each year. Currently, we sell our greenhouse tomatoes through online platforms and traditional sales channels to wholesale markets and supermarkets in first- and second-tier cities in China.”
Tomatoes
“At the moment, the overall tomato sales are not promising, even for better quality products. This is due to the fact that although the COVID-19 pandemic has been ongoing since the Spring Festival, it has been largely under control in China, the purchasing power of consumers has not returned to previous levels, and people's desire to buy is not strong."
"In addition, due to restricted logistics, a large volume of tomatoes has rotten in the fields or in transit as many ripe tomatoes couldn’t be shipped out of the production area in time and their shelf life is short. Even if they finally made it to the market, the quality of part of the supply has been compromised.”