Imports gaining traction in China

Users of Weibo, a Twitter-like social media platform, have recently been discussing how to eat avocados.

Under the heading "Avocados in millions of ways", people have posted photos of the fruit being blended into smoothies, made into guacamole or spread on toast and topped with a fried egg, indicating that Chinese are enjoying the exotic Central American fruit just as much as Westerners.

Aided by rising demand for premium-quality fruit from the nation's rising middle class, consumers are developing a strong appetite for avocados, which have long been regarded as a nutritionally dense "superfood".

Yang Xiaoping, from Xi'an, Shaanxi province, buys avocados whenever she sees them in supermarkets. It is a tricky fruit, because it is always hard to gauge its ripeness, but the 39-year-old knows the trick. Xi'an's inland location means avocados are a rarity for many locals, so very few people know how to eat them at their best.

"I am a fruit lover, but I hated avocados when I first tasted the fruit. It was so rough, hard to chew and flavorless. I thought 'Isn't fruit supposed to be juicy and sweet? Is this really a fruit?'" Yang said.

She was about to give up on the fruit, but when she visited the United Kingdom and saw avocado toast being served at a brunch restaurant she decided to try it again.

"The texture was surprising. It was very creamy and unlike any avocado I had tasted before," she recalled.

That was when Yang realized she had been eating the unripe fruit. She said avocados are still considered new in China's interior, so even the salespeople in stores don't know when or how to eat them.

Avocados displayed in Xi'an's supermarkets often have bright green skins and they need to be left for a few days to ripen fully.

If buyers don't know that, they are likely to be repelled by the taste and texture.

Now, when Yang is selecting avocados in the supermarket, she pinches them to test for softness, and only buys those with dark green skins.

"I've seen some nutritionists online say they are very healthy, but I just eat them for the taste. I really love the creamy texture because it is not found in many other fruits," she said.

Statistics from the General Administration of Customs show that China imported just 31.8 metric tons of avocados in 2011, but the number soared to 32,100 tons in 2017.

When Mexico began exporting the fruit to China in 2011, it was almost unknown to many Chinese, according to the Financial Times.

"It's viewed as something quite premium and healthy," Joey Wat, CEO of Yum China Holdings Inc, told the newspaper. Wat, who was chief operating officer at the time of the interview, explained that the company's decision to include avocados in wraps at its KFC fast-food chain helped to upgrade the brand's image.

New favorites

Avocados are not the only imported fruit gaining traction in China, though. Chilean cherries are also popular, although they are so expensive that netizens have coined the term "cherry freedom" - the ability to purchase the fruit without a second thought - as a wealth indicator.

Dragon fruit from ASEAN members and durians from Thailand are also firm favorites. Durians are used in many dishes - mille-feuille slices, cake rolls, puff pastry, ice-cream and durian cheese pizza - although it is considered a love-it-or-hate-it fruit.

"I was disgusted when I first encountered a durian in primary school," said Tao Yixin, a 25-year-old Xi'an resident. "My father bought one home. It smelled horrible and made our fridge stink, too."

That changed with one bite of the odorous fruit. Tao said she was extremely hungry one day, but there was nothing to eat at home except the durian. When she cautiously tried a spoonful, she instantly fell in love with the taste.

In recent years, China has emerged as a dynamic market for imported fruit. Figures from Rabobank, a banking and financial services company in the Netherlands, indicate that by 2016 China was the world's second-largest importer of fresh fruit, with a value of $8 billion. In 2006, the figure was $2 billion.

Rabobank has attributed the growth in China's fresh fruit trade to many factors, including improved market access, changing consumer preferences, a more professional retail environment and rising purchasing power.

Wu Jie, a fruit analyst with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said China will continue to see rising demand for high-quality fruit, and consumption is also expected to grow in remote, underdeveloped areas.

"Rising incomes, lifestyle changes and improved dietary habits have seen fruit becoming increasingly important in the diets of urban and rural Chinese," she said.