Japan’s famously expensive fruit items, particularly apples that retail for US$17, have found a new market in growingly affluent China.
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Prized all over Asia as ‘status fruit’ usually given away as flamboyant presents, Japanese growers of luxury apples have found an emerging market for their high-priced wares among the nouveau riche of China.
Apples from Katayama which produces the top “Japan’s Best” brand is selling its near perfect fruit at US$17 each in Beijing and Shanghai – about 100 times the price of an average Chinese apple. Apples that have dragon designs and Chinese characters specially impregnated on their skins are retailing for more than US$100.
Already Japan is famous for producing US$200 square watermelons, musk melons that fly off the shelves for US$300 and strawberries that retail for US$2 each. The emphasis, said Japanese food writer Yuko Suzuki, is on perfect presentation rather than taste.
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By GlobalData
