(Yicai) Jan. 9 -- The price of cherries has more than halved in China since October, when the fruit first hit the shelves, as imported cherries, including those sold on e-commerce platforms, flood the market, boosting sales.

Top-grade JJJJ cherries, which have a diameter of at least 32 millimeters, now cost CNY116 (USD23) per kilogram when three months ago they cost CNY336 per kg, a retailer at a farm produce market in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area told Yicai.

Prices should stay stable this month and inch up during the Lunar New Year holiday next month, the retailer added.

But as supply increases, so do sales. Dingdong Maicai’s cherry sales have jumped 70 percent in the past two weeks from a month earlier, Hui Xingpeng, a specialist in fruit development at the e-grocer told Yicai. The company can sell 10,000 servings of JJ-grade cherries per day.

The more Js, the bigger the cherry and the higher the price, according to the classification systems used by major cherry producing countries in South America.

China is the world’s largest importer of cherries, with cherry imports growing at an average rate of 20.4 percent a year over the past five years, according to data released by iQonsulting, a Chilean fresh fruit export consulting firm. In the production season from 2022 to 2023, China imported 378,000 tons of cherries, 97 percent of which came from Chile.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor