Tainan Travel

Tainan City Government assembled a pineapple production and marketing response team after China announced they are banning imports of the fruit from Taiwan. The team convenes weekly to discuss and roll out different adaptive strategies and assistance schemes. In terms of pushing domestic marketing, the team is working on launching nationwide marketing campaigns, expos, and sales events, encouraging large orders from top hundred enterprises, boosting online ordering and home delivery services, and promoting education on Food and Agriculture. The city is also strengthening overseas marketing as per Council of Agriculture policies by developing new international markets. The objective is to maintain stable production and sales for Tainan's pineapples through three major strategies – selling the fruit domestically and globally, and introducing different processed products.

Mayor Huang Wei-che expressed that Tainan City is currently collaborating with other major pineapple production areas (Pingtung, Kaohsiung, and Chiayi) to market their produce. Consumers can purchase pineapples from other counties and cities through Tainan Agricultural Products Marketing Company. The Mayor encouraged everyone to place their orders to support the pineapple producers.

Tainan City Government continues to look into different marketing channels to support the pineapple farmers. Huang Wei-che pointed out that the city government was already cooperating with e-commerce businesses to figure out how to prolong the shelf life of fresh produce sold via online channels before the pandemic broke out last year. He especially thanked online fresh foods and produce shopping platform i3fresh.tw and FamilyMart for jointly procuring 2,500 kgs of pineapples from Tainan City Government.

Huang also remarked that after China’s import ban, other countries around the world caught on the “Taiwan pineapple fever” and started to import the fruit to show their support, creating unexpected overseas business opportunities for the produce. For example, Taipei Business Association in Singapore and Fresh delivery stuff Ltd. jointly purchased over 25 tons of Taiwanese pineapples to ship to Singapore, and Japanese consumers are also rushing to buy pineapples from Taiwan. The Mayor expressed that the steady growth in both domestic consumption and exports can offset potential shortfall in sales caused by China's import ban.

About 15% of pineapple cultivation area is in Tainan City (approximately 1,761 hectares). The city’s total production volume is around 69,688 tons, with an annual output value of NTD 1.42 billion. Taiwan Golden Diamond Pineapples are mainly grown here and the peak harvest season is between April and May. Local producers usually do off-season production to boost fruit quality and avoid excess supply on the market. This strategy satisfies other consumption market and fresh fruit export demands as well.