From 300 yuan per pound to 9.9 yuan per pound, why is no one buying Sunshine Rose?

Have you noticed that the once popular grape Sunshine Rose has changed now. It is not only cheaper, but also tastes worse. It used to sell for hundreds of yuan per pound, but now it is difficult to sell for a few yuan per pound.

What happened to Sunshine Rose grapes?

Why did Sunshine Rose reduce its price?

When Sunshine Rose grapes first became popular in the market, in addition to their unique sweet, crisp and tender taste and plump, large and beautiful appearance, the most amazing thing was their price - the high price of 300 yuan per catty in boutique supermarkets, coupled with the exquisite packaging boxes, exudes an aristocratic atmosphere.

Sunshine Rose attracted attention because of the Sunny King. Image source: pixabay

Now, all major supermarkets and fruit stores are selling Sunshine Rose grapes, and even mobile fruit stalls at subway entrances and overpasses have started selling them! The price is even lower than it actually is, with prices ranging from 3 to 4 yuan per pound.
Why has Sunshine Rose become so cheap?

First of all, behind the price changes, there must be the impact of changes in supply and demand .

In 2016, the planting area of ​​Sunshine Rose grapes in China was only 100,100 mu, which was not enough to feed the more than one billion Chinese people who were hungry for food. In 2022, the planting area of ​​Sunshine Rose grapes in China increased several times, reaching 800,000 mu. The blooming Sunshine Rose grape bases are enough for everyone who loves to eat their favorite Sunshine Rose grapes.

But this alone is not enough to explain why the price has dropped by one percent - and no one is eating it.

In fact, this comparison is not rigorous. Because the Sunshine Rose grapes that sold for hundreds of yuan back then were so-called premium high-quality grapes. Even with the current overall price cut, they can still be sold for dozens of yuan per kilo. However, the Sunshine Rose grapes that sell for a few yuan per kilo today are not of high quality. Even if they return to their most popular period, they cannot be sold at high prices.

This is the same as our actual experience: the price is linked to the quality. The more expensive Sunshine Rose I bought has large and firm grains, a crisp texture, and a rose aroma.

However, the very cheap Sunshine Rose has a huge difference in appearance alone: ​​the size has shrunk, and the grains are sparsely arranged. The taste is not as crispy, but softer, and the aroma and flavor are insufficient, making people feel that it is better to eat ordinary green grapes.

So, everyone thinks that Sunshine Rose has become unpalatable because it has become cheaper. This is not an illusion - it’s just that in the past, most Sunshine Roses were expensive and premium fruits, and when you finally bought one, you would get high-quality and delicious ones. But now, many Sunshine Roses are high-yield and low-price, and they are everywhere. If you just buy a bunch of cheap ones on the roadside, they really don’t taste that good.

What kind of grape is Sunshine Rose?

Good-looking, delicious, very sweet, and crispy.

Sunshine Muscat grapes are a very good hybrid grape variety. It is a new variety bred by Japanese breeders after 11 years of hybridization. It combines the advantages of the European wine grape variety White South and the American grape Akizu No. 21. It has many advantages such as delicious, good-looking, large size, and disease resistance.

According to the description in the application documents for the variety, its sweetness can reach over 18%, and its taste is very unique. The flesh is hard, crisp and firm, and is not at all as soft as other grapes.

In addition, its seeds are also very pleasing in size, with a single fruit weight of about 10 to 13 grams, and the skin is thin and not astringent, so you can just eat it with the skin on. Most importantly, it really has a unique aroma, a unique combination of rose and milk aroma, usually described as musk - this is also the origin of its variety name, Shine Muscat.

Image source: pixabay The Qingwang that everyone was familiar with before was not the name of a variety, but a geographical indication trademark.

The main producing areas of Japan's Sunshine Rose are Nagano, Yamagata and Okayama prefectures. The quality of the Sunshine Rose grapes produced in Okayama Prefecture is particularly good, so the local government applied for a special geographical indication trademark for this purpose. Only Sunshine Rose grapes produced in Okayama Prefecture, with a single weight of more than 15 grams and a sweetness of more than 18, are eligible to be labeled with the "Sunshine King" certification.

Artificial cultivation is very important

Different management can lead to different quality. Even if the variety is excellent, the cultivation method must keep up to be truly excellent. If the cultivation technology is not in place, the fruit grown will be completely wrong.

During the flowering stage, a small half of the flower spikes should be removed directly, and the excess stems should also be removed. After flowering, when the fruits appear, it is necessary to thin the fruits, leaving only about 40 grains on a fruit spike. Although the yield is basically cut in half, it can ensure that the fruits are large and of high quality .

However, after the variety was introduced into China, some fruit farmers were reluctant to give up the entire bunches and fruits, and thus increased the yield per mu from 5,000 to 6,000 kilograms to nearly 10,000 kilograms, directly doubling it.

Although the grapes grown in this way look good at first glance, when you really buy them home and eat them, you will find that the fruit is small, not sweet, and has no fragrance. Even the most typical hard and crisp flesh has become soft. This kind of Sunshine Rose grape is really just a show, not even as good as ordinary grapes.

But for some fruit farmers who just want to make a quick buck, they think it's fine as long as it looks similar. The Sunshine Rose grapes produced in this way are the ones we buy on the roadside for a few dollars a pound, and they really taste bad.

The first impression of Sunshine Rose grapes is that they are large, which is mainly due to the characteristics of the variety. However, in order to obtain large berries and seedless characteristics, growth regulators such as gibberellins are also needed in the production process of Sunshine Rose. Because they promote the growth of the grapes, growth regulators are sometimes also called growth regulators.

Image source: pixabay

The name of the growth enhancer sounds particularly scary, but in fact it is an ingredient produced by plants themselves. Its use in fruit cultivation is approved by the state, legal and compliant, and does not cause any harm to the human body.

However, the use of growth regulators also requires strict control of concentration and application time. If used too much, it may actually reduce the quality of the fruit. Some fruit farmers blindly pursue super-large fruit and will increase the concentration and frequency of application without considering time, temperature, water and fertilizer during operation. This will result in the final fruit becoming hollow or cracked. Although it looks bigger, the quality and taste are not good.

In addition, various details such as bagging, rain shelter, and application of probiotics will affect the quality of the final fruit. The purity of seedlings is also very important. Many fruit farmers use "fake seedlings" grafted domestically... The quality is not good from the root, and coupled with inadequate cultivation and management in the later stage, it is inevitable that the fruit will taste bad.

In 2022, researchers conducted a comparative survey on Sunshine Rose grapes from 14 high-quality Sunshine Rose grape planting bases in Guangxi, Hebei, Henan, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Anhui, etc. In order to eliminate errors, the experiment also specially selected grape plants of the same age and picked grapes of the same maturity.

1. Appearance Difference

Just looking at the weight of a single grape, the fluctuation range is particularly large. The smallest is only 6.7 grams, while the largest can reach 17.29 grams. If it is grown well, one grape can be better than three.

2 Flavor Differences

Whether Sunshine Rose grapes are sweet enough and pure sweetness depends mainly on two hard indicators: sugar content and sugar-acid ratio. Among these Sunshine Rose grapes, the sugar content fluctuates greatly between 13% and 20%, which is basically the difference between not very sweet and very sweet. In addition, the highest and lowest solid acid ratios differ by half.

In short, the cheap Sunshine Rose grapes have become unpalatable, mostly because they are seeking high yields rather than high quality. In addition, some fruit farmers will cut the unripe fruits in advance in order to be the first to market, which results in the fruit being "only in shape but not in taste". Some inferior Sunshine Rose grapes are even fragranceless, low in sweetness, soft, and the skin is extremely sour and astringent.

Image source: pixabay

Of course, there are still Sunshine Rose grapes cultivated with high quality goals on the market, but their prices are still not low. Although not as amazing as the original price of 100 yuan per catty, they can still be maintained at a unit price of around 30 yuan.

If you really buy such high-quality fruit, you will find that the Sunshine Rose grapes are still as delicious as they were back then.

Planning and production

Source: Food_Lab

Review丨Ruan Guangfeng, Deputy Director of Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center

Editor: Bai Li