Sales of domestic aquatic products from JD Fresh increased 230 percent year-on-year in value terms during this year’s Singles Day (11 November) promotion, and sales of shrimp increased 80-fold and sales of fish jumped 100-fold, according to data provided to SeafoodSource.com by JD.com.
The data is in keeping with a commitment by the company in September to boost domestic seafood by committing to 200,000 tons of product from local suppliers.
JD.com hasn't detailed its Singles Day sales of imported seafood, but sales of Boston lobster rose 170 percent year-on-year on the day, a JD.com spokesperson told SeafoodSource. Separately, JD.com announced a successful cooperation with domestic tilapia producer Hainan Xiangtai Fishery Co, resulting in its sales of frozen fillets rocketing up on JD.com earlier this year.
With China’s seafood imports dropping due to increased COVID-related restrictions at Chinese ports, JD.com has portrayed its race to secure more domestic suppliers as an act of social responsibility, helping local seafood suppliers in a difficult time. As part of its push, JD.com has offered to work directly with local seafood companies, training them in digital commerce, marketing, and publicity. The company is sharing a template of what it achieved with Xiangtai, using videos, celebrity endorsers and culinary reviewers to push the company’s pomfret, shrimp, and tilapia.
Earlier this week, at the Food & Hotel China 2020 conference in Shanghai, JD.com also announced it was joining an “industrial alliance for aquatic products.”
“The alliance aims to find more new opportunities and build a win-win platform within the industry during the post-epidemic era, getting through the impact brought from the pandemic,” said Minghui Wang, operations manager at JD Fresh.
More than two hundred other enterprises across the value chain, including the Marine Stewardship Council, have thus far joined the alliance.
“It aims to integrate resources for building a safer and more standard aquatic products ecosystem for customers,” MSC Senior Business Manager of China Programs Xianglong Meng said in a press release.
JD.com has not made further announcements about an import-focused alliance it announced earlier this year, the “JD Seafood Safety Alliance,” which created a food safety code with local industry body CAPPMA, as well as the Global Aquaculture Alliance, Marine Stewardship Council, and the China-based embassies of major seafood exporting nations.
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