INDUSTRIAL NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Recently, Produce Report held a lecture at China Fruit Logistica, an annual trade show for China’s fresh fruit and vegetable industry, in Shanghai. Mr. Yuxin Yang, China Editor of Asiafruit Magazine, hosted the workshop. The main topic under discussion was Yiguo Group’s supply chain management company Win-Chain. Mr. Yuxin Yang invited the sourcing manager of Yiguo's import fruit business unit, Mr. Charley Xu, to explain the significance and impact of Win-Chain on the trade and retail sale of fresh food in China.

In brief, Yiguo was established in 2005, making it China's first fresh produce e-commerce platform. Over a decade, Yiguo transitioned from a simple e-commerce business to a vertically integrated commercial platform that remains committed to building a whole industry chain "expressway"—with the consumer market as the origin, the supply chain as the impetus, and cold chain logistics as the vehicle. Yiguo's vision is to build a collaborative platform and network that integrates the entire fresh food industry chain, utilizing business intelligence to drive the industry forward.

Subsequently, Win-Chain Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. was introduced by Yiguo Group in 2016 as a global acquisition center that covers all channels inside and outside of Alibaba's ecosystem. Moreover, Win-Chain is China's largest fresh food supply chain platform. The supply chain giant is committed to enhancing the fresh produce industry, connecting global fresh food resources, and servicing channels in China. As one of Yiguo Group's three companies, Win-Chain operates throughout the supply chain.

According to Mr. Charley Xu, Win-Chain's import fruit business unit will concentrate on integrating high-quality supply resources, penetrating major national and global fruit producing areas, searching for high-quality resources in fruit producing areas, and engaging Alibaba ecosystem's global resources. Accordingly, Win-Chain looks to establish far-reaching cooperation with willing and powerful suppliers. Then, through the end-to-end network of ExFresh—one of China's largest cold-chain logistics platforms—Win-Chain will achieve the development of all domestic retail channels. Currently, ExFresh operates 24 warehouses in 15 locations across China. Operations can handle 1.8 million orders per day, making ExFresh China's most productive supplier.

From a comprehensive perspective of upstream and downstream supply chain mechanics, the creation of such a complete supply network is no simple task. Together with Yiguo Group's current institutions, Win-Chain integrates upstream resources that originate in six continents across the globe. Next, Yiguo employs ExFresh's cold-chain logistics, storage, and distribution capabilities. Finally, Yiguo integrates downstream resources by its command of new retail, a concept that refers to retail that is data-driven and focused on consumer experience. Acting in an exclusive industry, Yiguo is the largest e-commerce platform in terms of B2B, RTC, and O2O operations. In effect, Yiguo Group's three major businesses function as one unit and cover all ends of the supply chain.

Therefore, Win-Chain's procurement activities are only one segment of Yiguo's extensive supply chain.

In the wake of the new retail trend, Win-Chain is situated in an advantageous position.

The type of consumer experience afforded by the fresh food industry—along with the commercial behavior of businesses—relies greatly on the guidance and support of big data. Win-Chain's advantages are that it reaches consumers through omnichannel retailing and consumption data - effectively linking the whole supply chain while simultaneously alleviating production and consumer pain points.

Currently, on the production end, Win-Chain already has 4,000 stock keeping units (SKU), of which fruit accounts for approximately 1200 units. Win-Chain will continue to expand several major production regions in the southern hemisphere, increasing the development of grapes, berries, citrus fruits, cherries, kiwis, avocados, apples and other agricultural products. Cultivation of tropical fruits, including the durian and coconut, are also to be vigorously expanded. Data generated by consumers will help guide and shape production, product quality, and package specialization. Furthermore, data will also be used to optimize both procurement and delivery.

Previously, Alibaba Group invested 300 million USD in Yiguo, the largest round of financing ever recorded in the fresh food industry. This investment helped support the layout of the cold chain logistics network and optimization of the consumer experience. It is reported that Yiguo's new retail team handles pallet operations for Tmall, Suning, and Yiguo Fresh Food. Beyond that, as an omnichannel platform and widespread new retail operator, Win-Chain cooperates across many channels, including with B2B and O2O businesses, unmanned convenient stores, and more. As a result, Win-Chain possesses a diverse collection of China's fresh food industry user data.

Mr. Charley Xu says Win-Chain meets face-to-face with Alibaba's backend data team on a weekly basis. Together, the two teams analyze temporal and seasonal characteristics of consumer behavior, feed consumer preferences to the frontend, and modify product design and layout according to the needs of consumers.

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