China Green Week, Horti China Bring Together Fresh Produce Industry in Shanghai

China Green Week, a top trade show in China for both the domestic and international fresh produce and horticultural industries, concluded in Shanghai today to praise from exhibitors and visitors.

The show was divided into three parts: HortiChina Tfresh, which focused on fresh produce, HortiChina Tech, focused on floriculture technology; and Natural China, focused on health foods. China Green week therefore saw exhibitors from all parts of the fresh produce and horticultural products and services supply chains, as well as a number of packaged food companies, and a large range of related products and services.

The exhibitors were joined by expert conference speakers and government and industry representatives from around the world participating in concurrent themed sessions and networking meetings, alongside crowds of enthusiastic visitors.          

One of the strongest focuses of the show was on horticultural technology. Therefore, of the many regions such as Italy, France, Spain, Japan and Taiwan which had exhibitors at China Green Week, the strongest international presence came from Holland. With a world-leading horticultural systems and services industry, the Dutch contingent to HortiChina Tech included 20 companies, many of which have offices in China.

And for both international and domestic horticultural suppliers and solutions providers, it’s a good time to be working in China. The consensus among participants in China Green Week and HortiChina is that China is in the midst of period of rapid upgrades in infrastructure and development in growing techniques for a wide range of fruits and vegetables, with more crops grown in controlled environments and with more and more technology applied to growing. “The trend that I see for our company in China is that the greenhouses are shifting from the smaller mom and pop operations into more modern greenhouses and larger scale glasshouses,” said Michael Ploeg, Export Area Manager at Dalsem, a Dutch company that designs and manages greenhouse construction projects and currently has projects going on around China.

“This year was much better than last year’s Hortichina show for the number of visitors, especially on the first day,” said Fulco Wijdooge, General Manager China for Ridder, another Netherlands-based company that provides greenhouse climate and control equipment, systems and services. He noted that attendance seemed to be boosted by the fact that the China Greenhouse and Horticultural Industry Conference 2018 was held in the preceding the start of China Green Week. “All of our customers were already here on the 20th, so on the 21^st everybody came over to have a look. It’s always useful to meet your clients and potential leads from the industry.”

Outside of the main show floor, there was plenty of knowledge sharing and high level networking. On Wednesday afternoon, a delegation from the French city of Angers met with officials from the Sichuan province department of agriculture and from the local governments of counties in Sichuan with high agricultural output, including products such as citrus and kiwifruit. The topic of discussion was the challenged facing growers in Sichuan and what sorts of knowledge exchange and French technology could be useful in helping the Sichuan growers to become more sustainable and efficient.

Concurrent forum events covered a wide range of topics, and ranged from broad market outlooks in China for products like berries (very optimistic) to very technical presentations about choosing the correct substrates for soilless growing.

A sampling of concurrent events at China Green Week 2018 included: Seeding the Future — Sino-Euro Veg & Fruit Forum; Seventh Edition of the Reverse Purchasing Conference; Berry Fruit Technology Forum; Second Edition of the World Citrus Industry Forum; and a cold chain management seminar co-organized by Emerson and Produce Report.