A fresh programme is judged by what arrives, not by what was loaded. That single fact decides how this category is run: harvest windows are booked before selling starts, grading happens at the packing house rather than in the field, and every consignment is planned around the transit time it will actually face rather than the transit time on the rate card.
Phoenix Food Technology ships fresh vegetables and fruit from Shandong and neighbouring production areas to importers, wholesale markets and retail programmes. This page introduces the range; each product page carries sizing, packing and loading detail.
Alliums — fresh onions in yellow, red and purple and fresh white garlic in 10 kg mesh bags.
Roots and tubers — fresh sweet potato, sweet potato for processing and Shandong 8520 hairy taro.
Fruit — fresh blueberries from China, packed for air freight.
Nuts in shell — Chinese chestnuts from Shandong and Dandong.
Ginger, fresh and dried — see the fresh ginger category for wholesale, large yellow and air-dried grades.
Fresh produce is the one category where the calendar is a commercial constraint, not a background detail. Garlic and onions lift in early summer and hold in cured storage; blueberries run a short window; taro and sweet potato are lifted in autumn; chestnuts fall once a year. A buyer who places an order in the wrong month is not buying at a worse price — they are buying stored material or the next crop, which is a different product.
We therefore quote against a harvest window and confirm the storage age at the time of shipment. If you need a specific crop, that is written into the offer rather than implied.
Sizing is expressed in millimetres or grams, never in words. Onions are sized by diameter, garlic by bulb weight and count per mesh bag, sweet potato by weight band, blueberries by berry diameter, chestnuts by count per kilogram. A specification that says "medium" invites a dispute; a specification that says 60–70 mm does not.
Grading also covers what is rejected: skin defects, sunburn, sprouting, mechanical damage, disease, and soil. We agree the tolerance in writing — a percentage of defect by count or by weight — because zero tolerance is not achievable in a living crop and an unstated tolerance is always read differently by the two sides.
Mesh bags, cartons, crates and consumer packs are all available, and the choice is driven by the route. Onions and garlic travel well in ventilated mesh or perforated cartons that allow air movement; blueberries need rigid punnets in a master carton with forced-air cooling before loading; roots and tubers are packed in 10 kg or 20 kg cartons depending on the retailer's handling equipment.
Reefer and air freight are quoted per destination, with the temperature set agreed at booking: chilled for berries and leafy items, ambient-ventilated for cured alliums, and controlled-atmosphere where the transit time justifies it. Fresh ginger, which is often shipped in the same consignment, is held at 12–13 °C rather than at normal chilled temperature, since colder storage damages the rhizome.
Fresh produce crosses borders on paperwork as much as on quality. Each shipment carries commercial invoice, packing list, certificate of origin and the phytosanitary certificate required by the importing country, and fumigation or cold-treatment records where the destination protocol demands them. Residue testing against the destination's maximum residue levels is arranged on request, and the certificate of analysis is issued before loading so a failed result is caught at origin rather than at the port of discharge.
The minimum order is 1 metric ton per item and per size grade. Fresh produce loads by weight and by pallet count rather than by a single fixed figure, so the container plan is confirmed with the quotation: a 20-foot reefer takes around 16 tons and a 40-foot around 25 tons for cartoned goods, while mesh-bag alliums can load closer to the weight limit. Terms are FOB Qingdao with payment before shipment unless agreed otherwise, and lead time is normally within three weeks of a signed contract, tighter inside a harvest window.
Retail programmes need more than a good crop: consistent pack weight, barcode and lot coding, artwork approved before the run, and a shelf-life statement the retailer can print. We pack under your brand with your artwork and your pack sizes, and hold the approved specification on file so the second season matches the first.
Product range | Fresh alliums, roots, tubers, fruit and in-shell nuts |
Sizing | By diameter (mm), bulb weight, count per kg or weight band |
Defect tolerance | Agreed in writing by count or by weight |
Packing | Mesh bag, carton, crate, punnet and master carton |
Transit | Reefer container or air freight; temperature per item |
Minimum order | 1 metric ton per item and size grade |
Loading | Approx. 16 t / 20'FCL, 25 t / 40'FCL, by packing format |
Trade terms | FOB Qingdao; payment before shipment |
Documentation | Invoice, packing list, CO, phytosanitary certificate |
Ask for the storage age and the packing date, not just the harvest region. A cured onion in good condition in week two of storage and the same onion in week twelve are both legally "fresh", and only one of them will still be saleable after a four-week ocean leg. The second question worth asking is who pays for a rejected container: agree the tolerance, the inspection point and the remedy before the first shipment, because the answer is unenforceable once the goods are on the water.
For buyers running both chilled and frozen programmes from the same origin, our frozen vegetables category uses the same growing belt, which allows a single quality conversation across two product lines.
Not every item. Garlic, onions, blueberries, taro, sweet potato and chestnuts each have a defined harvest window, and outside it the offer is stored crop or the next season. We state the crop and storage age in the quotation so there is no ambiguity.
By putting numbers in the specification before the order: diameter in millimetres, count per kilogram, or weight band, plus a defect tolerance by count or weight. The pre-shipment inspection report is measured against those figures.
Yes. Blueberries are usually air-freighted for freshness-critical programmes and reefer-shipped for cost-sensitive ones. The trade-off is shelf life against freight cost per kilogram, and we quote both so the comparison is explicit.
Each item carries a 1 metric ton minimum. Mixed loads are possible across items in the same temperature regime, and the container plan is built around the mix rather than assuming a single-product load.
All destinations require a phytosanitary certificate and certificate of origin. Some also require fumigation, cold treatment or residue testing against local MRLs. Tell us the destination at enquiry so the protocol is confirmed before loading.
