Recent data on Chinese food imports are hard to come by, but fruit and nut imports jumped 16.8 percent year-on-year to $5.9 billion in 2015, according to China Customs. In January 2016, fruit and nut imports rose another 1.8 percent from the previous year.
Sales of overseas food gift boxes also jumped in the run-up to 2016 Spring Festival.
Fresh food also won many Chinese buyers. During Tmall Global's New Year's sale, fresh food sales were seven times higher than the corresponding period in 2015.
"Hot sellers included lobsters from Canada, seafood from New Zealand, mangos from Vietnam and cherries from the US," Pan Damo noted.
Still, not everyone is sold on the idea. Pan Xiao'er said she would think twice about buying fresh food, especially meat, from overseas. "Freshness is my biggest concern," she said.
Holiday demand
As China has been importing more food from abroad, it's no surprise that overseas food exporters have be selling more to China.
Australia shipped 500 tons of cherries to the Chinese mainland in 2015, said Simon Boughey, CEO of Cherry Growers Australia (CGA), an organization for Australian cherry growers.
More than 300 tons of cherries came from Australia's island state of Tasmania. The amount was more than double from the previous year.
Boughey said that the demand was especially high around Christmas and in the lead-up to the Chinese New Year.
"Our cherry growers are trying to adapt to changes in Chinese New Year dates that vary from year to year. So they need to pick at the right time to get there for the whole holiday, not only in China but across Asia where they celebrate the Chinese New Year," he told the Global Times on February 8.
It turns out that getting good to China just before the Spring Festival has become more challenging.
In a February report, the Beijing-based International Herald Leader newspaper quoted a Canada-based lobster exporter who said that Canadian exporters need to arrange cargo flights to China much further in advance around the Chinese New Year.
They usually need to book space on a cargo plane to China one month ahead of time, except during the holidays, when they have to make reservations four months in advance.
Boughey noted that most Australian growers can get their products to market within 72 hours, provided that they have access. The export protocol is currently an issue. Right now, only cherries from Tasmania can be airfreighted to China.
"We have asked for airfreight access into China for all growing regions in Australia," he said.
If growers from other regions of Australia had full market access they could supply 4,000 tons of cherries each season to China, he noted.
Rural tastes
According to a report by Tmall Global, spending on overseas food in China during the Spring Festival holidays was almost the same in big cities and rural areas.
"Residents in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou are the main purchasing force for our New Year goods, but we also have farmers from Luochuan, [a village in Yan'an city of Northwest China's Shannxi Province], who ordered New Zealand seafood on Tmall for a banquet," Pan Damo said.
"The rising demand from rural areas was beyond our expectation," he noted.
"Last year, we had clients from small cities in East China's Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces who ordered imported wine that cost more than 10,000 yuan ($1,522) per bottle," she said. "This was unheard of in the past."
