Southern Finance Journalist Zhang Mengqi

2026 is the "small year for lychee," with a nationwide expected production decrease of about 37%, and Guangdong's output also reduced by nearly 40%. However, Zhongli Group has managed to break through against the trend: while export volume has slightly declined, export prices remain strong, leading to a 10% increase in export value.

"When we first started lychee exports, it was common to have entire containers spoiled, and we dreaded hearing 'up the mountain.' Now our patented varieties 'Chi Meiren' and 'Hong Liren' have become high-end fruits in the eyes of consumers across the ocean." Looking back over the years, Chen Yaohua has experienced a transformation from complete container spoilage to supply shortages.

In the 1990s, some companies attempted lychee exports, but due to inadequate preservation technology, it basically came to a halt around 2000. In 2002, Chen Yaohua began to explore lychee exports. The first two years were severely unprofitable, and he once considered giving up. "Being able to eat lychees from my hometown feels incredibly happy," the simple feedback from overseas compatriots kept him going.

In 2019, under the guidance of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Zhongli Group was established, with several leading lychee enterprises from Guangdong joining forces to go overseas. Today, Zhongli Group has established planting bases and processing plants in seven provinces across the country, with an average annual export volume of 15,000 tons of agricultural products.

If overseas compatriots are the "spark" for lychee exports, then local consumers abroad are the next target for truly globalizing lychee.

In Chen Yaohua's view, Guangdong lychee exports already have advantages in varieties, standards, and channels, but to enter the high-end international market, cultural premium is still needed. "The story of 'A Ride Through the Dust, the Concubine's Smile' is widely circulated in overseas Chinese circles, but the reach to local consumer groups is still insufficient."

In 2025, under the guidance of the Guangdong Provincial Publicity Department and the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the "Oriental Love Fruit" IP was launched at the Shenzhen Cultural Expo. Seizing this opportunity, Zhongli Group secured a batch of overseas contracts on the day of the brand launch and sent 40 tons of "Oriental Love Fruit" to the North American market in May this year. With the brand continuing to gain popularity, Guangdong lychee is experiencing a value leap.

Over the past year, how has the "Oriental Love Fruit" made "the world know that lychee is coming"? Recently, Southern Finance interviewed Zhongli Group Chairman Chen Yaohua to decode the industrial chain upgrade behind Guangdong lychee's counter-trend overseas expansion.

Southern Finance: How is Zhongli Group's lychee export situation this year?

Chen Yaohua: In January this year, we opened the global pre-sale procurement channel for the 2026 "Oriental Love Fruit" Guangdong lychee. So far, although the export volume has slightly declined, the export prices remain strong, leading to an approximate 10% increase in export value. Among them, the export volume of bulk varieties is stable, while high-end varieties have seen a slight decrease.

In terms of the market, we mainly sell to North America, Australia, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, and currently, Zhongli products have covered more than 20 countries and regions worldwide. In 2025, we entered the South American market for the first time, and this year, we are seeing growth again in the North American local market.

Southern Finance: Since the pre-sale began in January, how have you stabilized the annual export rhythm through the order agriculture model? Chen Yaohua: Traditional agricultural product exports are dominated by production seasons. We implement the "contract farming + base + standards + quality" model to secure sales channels before lychee harvesting and dispatch immediately after. In the month when the pre-sale channel for "Oriental Love Fruit" was opened, we began negotiations with overseas customers; later, at the 2026 Guangdong Lychee Carnival, we released a "one-page" guide for lychee production and sales delivery, covering 100 large-scale planting entities in the province, providing support for the sourcing and production-sales connection of contract farming.

This year, our base in Eastern Guangdong reached a guaranteed purchase cooperation with Shouheng Agricultural and Sideline Group, further expanding the scale of direct supply bases and promoting the implementation of contract farming.

Southern Finance: What impact does the "lychee small year" have on business? In recent years, is the impact of "big and small years" diminishing?

Chen Yaohua: In the Guangdong production area, this year the overall lychee production is estimated to decrease by 30% to 40%. Many varieties and regions are severely affected, posing significant challenges to our marketing plans.

Against this backdrop, Zhongli Group has been able to stabilize the situation, thanks to the company's early layout in terms of varieties, supply sources, and production periods. We rely on early-maturing lychee from volcanic rock to seize the early market, and with the late-maturing patented varieties "Chi Meiren" and "Hong Liren," we fill the gap in the late market, achieving stable supply from May to September over an extended period.

Secondly, it benefits from our national base layout. In recent years, we have established planting bases and processing plants in seven provinces across the country, including Xinjiang, covering early-maturing lychee from Hainan, mid-maturing lychee from Guangdong and Guangxi, and late-maturing lychee from Sichuan and Chongqing, forming a complementary market structure with differences in maturity periods.

In addition, we have also delved into base management in recent years, positioning the management of planting bases as one of our core businesses to ensure stable supply under "big and small years."

In fact, the natural disturbances of lychee "big and small years" will not completely disappear, but technological empowerment at the planting end has significantly improved the passive situation of agriculture relying on weather. The diversification of varieties and origins at the trading end can stabilize supply and extend cycles, continuously enhancing the industry's risk resistance.

In the next 3 to 5 years, "big and small years" will shift from an industrial risk to a normal rhythm of variety rotation.

Southern Finance: What key milestones has Zhongli experienced from its initial export of a single container to its current scale?

Chen Yaohua: The development of Zhongli is a process of breakthrough step by step, which can be said to have four key points. In 2002, the first batch of lychee containers was exported to the United States, initially targeting the overseas Chinese market. At that time, the fresh produce export system was not well established, and the loss during storage and transportation of lychee was extremely high, often leading to entire containers being scrapped. We navigated through continuous trial and error to establish export standards and open up core overseas channels, achieving a breakthrough from 0 to 1.

2019 was a core turning point. Under the guidance of the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Zhongli Group was officially established, integrating scattered foreign trade resources in the industry to go overseas, building a complete industrial chain system that includes seed industry, planting, processing, cold chain, and sales, solidifying the foundation for industrial development.

With the industrial platform in place, we focused on solidifying the foundation of varieties and bases. In 2022, we introduced the two patented varieties "Chi Meiren" and "Hong Liren," cultivated over 24 years by Professor Liu Chengming's team from South China Agricultural University, establishing the largest planting base in the country in Lufeng, Shanwei Finally, there is the upgrade of brand value. We are creating two exclusive cultural IPs. In 2022, the "Lychee Flower Dan" landed in Times Square, New York, and promoted the brand in multiple countries; in 2025, the "Oriental Love Fruit" IP will debut at the Shenzhen Cultural Expo and appear at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations global exhibition, achieving a value leap for lychee sold "by the piece."

Southern Finance: What advantages do the patented varieties you mentioned, such as "Late Beauty" and "Red Beauty," have in the international market?

Chen Yaohua: "Late Beauty" is a variety developed by the team of Liu Chengming from Huazhong Agricultural University, using "Ma Gui Lychee" and "Jiao He San Yue Hong" as parents, after 24 years of hybrid selection. The average weight of a single fruit is 58 grams, with the largest exceeding 100 grams, making it one of the largest lychee varieties in the world; it matures 10 to 15 days later than "Huai Zhi" and has basically no alternate bearing. In June of this year, the field price of "Late Beauty" reached 50 to 80 yuan per kilogram, more than three times higher than traditional Wu Ye varieties, indicating that the market has voted with its price. "Red Beauty" is listed a week later than "Huai Zhi" and is less prone to splitting, making it a mainstay for exports. We will also focus on promoting this variety to meet the global lychee consumption market's demand.

In addition, we have laid out a series of high-end varieties such as Xian Jin Feng, Ice Lychee, Guanyin Green, and Red Lantern.

We have found that in the international market, high-end lychee is gradually becoming a new favorite among consumers. We have grasped the entire industry chain from breeding, planting, processing to sales, which gives us the confidence to compete for pricing power in the international market.

We further summarize that North America focuses on differentiated packaging, Southeast Asia promotes specialty fruits, and Europe prefers a combination of traditional flavors and experiences. In the future, we will continue to optimize the structure of export varieties to meet segmented demands and achieve premium products at premium prices.

Southern Finance: Lychee preservation is a core challenge in the industry. How does the supply chain support global distribution?

Chen Yaohua: Lychee "changes color in one day, changes fragrance in two days, and changes taste in three days." Preservation is a global challenge, especially for long-distance exports: not only must it cross thousands of miles, but it also needs to maintain a shelf life of 7 to 15 days after arrival. This requires that every link from pre-cooling in the field to overseas shelving be fully controllable.

In recent years, we have continuously improved our supply chain infrastructure. We have now established 50 export registration bases and six major export processing centers, forming a standardized export capacity system.

For example, the international operation center project located in Gaoming, Foshan, covers an area of 19,000 square meters, with a building area of about 43,000 square meters, encompassing functions such as initial and deep processing of agricultural products, domestic warehousing, and overseas cooperative front warehouse support. We will focus on fruit cutting and ready-to-eat vegetable processing to further meet the demand of the Greater Bay Area market.

Just last month, the Eastern Guangdong cold chain logistics park officially went into production, which is a core support for our deep cultivation of late-maturing production areas in Eastern Guangdong. We plan to jointly invest 80 million yuan with the Shantou Supply and Marketing Cooperative to build lychee dormancy processing and preservation processing production lines. Once the project is fully operational, it will drive 160,000 acres of lychee in Lufeng to "freshly float around the world." In addition, in terms of transportation methods, apart from land cold chain, we have increased the air freight ratio to 10% this year to ensure fast delivery over long distances.

“Oriental Love Fruit” Guangdong lychee brand, data image

Southern Finance: What is the impression of overseas consumers on lychee?

Chen Yaohua: "A horse gallops through the dust, and the concubine smiles," overseas Chinese all know that eating lychee around the Dragon Boat Festival is a kind of ritual. It should be noted that this perception is still largely confined to the Chinese community and has not formed a fixed consumption trend in the local market. This is also a problem faced by many agricultural product exports: while quality control and channel capabilities are in place, brand marketing and cultural dissemination are still insufficient.

So, as I mentioned earlier, in the past two years, we have focused on creating the "Oriental Love Fruit" and "Lychee Huadan" cultural IP, hoping to leverage the momentum of Chinese culture to truly break the boundaries of the lychee brand.

Southern Finance: What practical benefits has the "Oriental Love Fruit" brand IP brought?

Chen Yaohua: The "Oriental Love Fruit" IP was launched at the Shenzhen Cultural Expo in 2025, and we achieved a batch of overseas cooperation on the day of the event. This brand deeply binds the thousand-year love imagery of "A horse gallops through the dust, and the concubine smiles" with Guangdong lychee, while also incorporating some trendy elements.

For example, the "1 Minute to Peel the Oriental Love Fruit" challenge initiated by Hurun attracted various celebrities, including Li Xiaohua, the first person in China to own a Ferrari, and the co-founder and CEO of Pony.ai, who all participated, allowing the "Oriental Love Fruit" to leap from the agricultural product trading market into the social circle of high-net-worth individuals. At the same time, with the movie "Lychee of Chang'an" officially landing in global theaters, the short film "Impossible Delivery," co-launched by Southern Finance and Chinese Film Industry, became a comprehensive presentation of this IP in the international perspective.

In May of this year, we sent 40 tons of "Concubine Smile" lychee to the North American market under the name "Oriental Love Fruit." This batch of lychee was kept fresh through cold chain throughout the journey and reached North American consumers' tables after about 20 days of shipping. The response from distributors has been enthusiastic, and they have placed additional orders. From the feedback at the terminal, the proportion of local customer groups and repurchase rates have both increased. Many distributors have also reported that consumers have formed a preliminary brand impression of "Oriental Love Fruit."

Southern Finance: Compared to global fruit "top streams" like cherries and durians, how should Guangdong lychee "evolve" in the future?

Chen Yaohua: The experiences of cherries and durians are worth learning from. Chile concentrates over 60% of the global cherry supply, while Thailand and Vietnam account for over 90% of the durian supply. The high concentration of the industry, unified branding, standards, and marketing are key to their stability in the global market. In contrast, lychee is planted in Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan, Sichuan, Chongqing, and Yunnan, with nearly a hundred varieties and market entities in the tens of thousands, which is a relatively dispersed situation that we need to face In fact, Guangdong lychee possesses the hard power to be a "global top-tier" fruit. The production of Guangdong lychee accounts for more than 60% of the world's total, with the largest planting area and the richest variety resources globally. Among them, high-end varieties such as Xianjinfeng, Bingli, Honglirén, and Hongdenglong have qualities, tastes, and rarity that can fully compete with imported high-end fruits. What we lack is not quality, but a unified brand recognition and market integration capability.

Since its establishment in 2019, Zhongli has helped about 2,000 farmers increase their income. Small lychee, world fruit. The construction of agricultural product brands focuses on efforts, but more importantly, it requires perseverance. In the future, Zhongli Group will collaborate with more production areas and enterprises to expand more than 100 dedicated export bases, covering over 100,000 acres of orchards; strengthen preservation and variety technology advantages, deeply cultivate the RCEP and high-end markets in Europe and America, and expand into emerging channels in the Middle East and South America. It is hoped that within 3 to 5 years, Guangdong lychee will shift from "selling products" to "selling standards, selling varieties, selling culture," securing a place in the international high-end fruit market