"No Selling of Bad-Tasting Fruits"... Large Supermarkets' Vital Strategy to Differentiate Fresh Food

Emart Manages Everything from Cultivation to Distribution
Lotte Mart Introduces AI Sorting System
Homeplus Operates Fresh Farm Brand

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] Large supermarkets are putting their lives on selling high-sugar and delicious fruits. This is to strengthen fresh food, the core competitiveness of offline stores, in response to the price offensive of e-commerce. Each company is securing a supply pool of excellent domestic farms and actively introducing differentiated selection systems.

According to Emart on the 27th, about 70 products of the fresh food brand ‘Farmers Pick’ are being sold, and the plan is to expand to about 90 products by the end of the year. Farmers Pick is a brand where Emart directly selects farms with excellent know-how and participates directly in quality control, selection of excellent products, and distribution processes to supply fresh fruits and vegetables. The agricultural products undergo strict screening from the production stage to quality checks such as cultivation methods, size, and weight. As a result, the sales proportion of Farmers Pick among total fruit and vegetable sales increased from 12% in January this year to 28% last month, receiving positive responses from consumers.

Lotte Mart has introduced an artificial intelligence (AI) selection system to improve the taste and quality of fruits. It is currently applied to four types: Hami melon, muskmelon, golden sweet muskmelon, and nectarine, and plans to increase the number of items in the future. The AI selection system is an advanced system beyond the previously used non-destructive sugar content selector, capable of measuring not only weight and sugar content but also moisture content and ripeness. Through this, it became possible to select internal defects such as internal browning and overripeness, which were difficult to measure with the non-destructive sugar content selector and accounted for most customer complaints about melons. At Lotte Mart, from the 1st to the 23rd of this month, total fruit sales increased by 10% compared to the previous year, and high-sugar fruit sales increased by 55%.

Homeplus is presenting the ‘Fresh Farm’ brand, which offers high-quality fresh fruits. Currently, 550 Fresh Farms are operated, with plans to expand to about 700 by next year. Fresh Farms target individual farms with a cultivation area of 3,305㎡ (1,000 pyeong) or more, who have more than 10 years of know-how or are recommended by regional agricultural cooperatives, as well as producer groups of 20 or more farms. Professional quality managers visit these farms directly at least once a week to provide cultivation management and technical guidance.

A representative from a large supermarket said, "We are selling fruits with a differentiated system to provide fresh food with the best taste and quality," adding, "We plan to continuously increase the number of items operated and secure competitiveness in fresh food."