Singapore-based fresh produce marketer SunMoon Food Company last month entered into several sales orders with leading Chinese fresh food e-tailer Shanghai Yiguo E-Commerce Co through its wholly-owned unit SunMoon Distribution & Trading.
In an investor update, Singapore-listed company SunMoon said the sales orders were in line with its three-pronged approach of focusing on network, geography and product.
While noting that it had already been supplying Yiguo with fresh produce, SunMoon said the transactions would introduce a range of fruit, fruit-related and vegetable products such as frozen durians, young coconuts and oranges.
“This [deal] will enable the group to tap a rapidly expanding digital sales network and to establish and secure the SunMoon brand within the mindshare of the new sophisticated consumer when it comes to health, freshness and natural goodness,” said the company in its investor update.
Yiguo sources various products globally, including fruit, vegetables, seafood, meat, poultry and eggs, pastries and beverages, and desserts. The company has been in a strategic partnership with Alibaba.com since 2014.
“Yiguo E-commerce is one of PRCs’s premier brands in the provision of quality fresh food products, and our ongoing collaboration ties in perfectly with our brand identity as a developer of innovative, natural, sustainable and nutritious food products for increasingly health-conscious global consumers,” said executive chairman and CEO of SunMoon Gary Loh.
“Yiguo E-Commerce also owns a nationwide distribution network, which gives us the perfect platform to reach out to the millions of people in the PRC and establish the SunMoon brand as the quality, fresh fruit products provider of choice.”
Steven Jin, co-founder and co-president of Shanghai Yiguo E-commerce Co, said SunMoon was Singapore’s well-known brand with “an absolute advantage on global sourcing”.
“SunMoon's cooperation with orchards across the world, its rich fruit purchasing experiences, and its abilities in the areas of processing and repacking are what Yiguo is looking for in a business partner,” said Jin. “The collaboration partnership with SunMoon will strengthen Yiguo’s global supply chain management, product control, and product line expansion, which means Yiguo will provide better quality service to more families in the PRC. '
Explaining SunMoon’s focus on network, geography and product, Loh said Yiguo formed a key part of the company’s network as an e-retailer
“We have been talking to Yiguo since last October and they’ve seen our product and brand-building taking shape,” he said. “We all see the relationship to be synergistic. Yiguo is also the operator behind the fresh section of Tmall where our products are also selling. They will be able to promote our brand much more effectively than we could.”
Loh added that SunMoon was also developing relationships with off-line supermarket chains in China, such as City Super, and specialist fresh fruit chain stores, notably Harvest Season, in which it purchased a 12 per cent stake via a debt-discharge deal in February.
With its geographical focus on China, Loh told Asiafruit the company would be looking to introduce a range of products, including dragon fruit, avocados, grapes, Thai durian and mangosteens as well as its fruit-in-cups and freeze dried crisps.
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