Discounted tangerines to go on sale at 6 parks

Tangerines grown in suburban Chongming District and the Pudong New Area will be sold at six parks from November 8 at wholesale prices to boost sales.

The tangerines will be sold at Zhongshan, Heping, Yangpu, Changfeng and Luxun parks as well as Shanghai Botanical Garden. Sales will run through to November 30.

The city has 4,267 hectares, of land for tangerine planting, of which over 80 percent is in Chongming, with the rest located along the Dazhi River in Pudong, Jinshan and Fengxian districts, according to Shanghai Forestry Station. 

Changxing Town, Luhua Town and Hengsha Village in Chongming have the biggest tangerine planting areas in the city.

Tangerines sold at these parks come from Chongming and Pudong. They will be transported to the parks directly in the early morning the day after they are picked.

“These tangerines are very fresh when they are sold at these parks and are of superb quality,” said Zheng Jie, an official with the station.

“With the temperature difference between day and night getting bigger these days — favorable conditions for tangerines — the sugar levels of the fruit are also raised,” she said. “It’s the ideal time to taste the sweet and succulent fruit.”

The price of tangerines sold at these parks is 3.4 yuan (50 US cents) per kilogram, compared with about 4 to 6 yuan market prices of the fruit, according to Zheng.

The production of tangerines shrank significantly this year because of the shrinkage of planting space and some farmers have turned to other fruits such as pears due to the low prices of tangerines, she said. 

The total production amount of the fruit is 110,000 tons this year, compared with 160,000 tons last year. 

But the quality is as high as last year, said Zheng. 

Sales of Chongming tangerines were once sluggish due to a lack of sales channels as Chongming is far from downtown and had poor transport links before the Changjiang Tunnel-Bridge was built.

The difficulties of getting fruit to market prompted city authorities to step in several years ago and set up free stalls for farmers in downtown parks.

The tangerines will be sold from 8am to 11am at the parks. “The fruit is very popular and they quickly sold out in previous years,” said Zheng.