"How much are these lemons worth?" On December 9, Tan Chuanjiang, the head of Sichuan Pengruiyuan Food Co., Ltd., pointed to a pile of lemons in the raw material area and told the reporter, "More than 120,000 yuan, which is about 6 yuan per jin."

Since the beginning of this year, the imbalance between supply and demand has pushed up the price of lemons. Anyue, as China's main lemon producing area, has entered the "highlight moment" of industrial development: the average purchase price of orchards has broken through 6 yuan per jin, and the output value per mu has exceeded 20,000 yuan, doubling that of last year.

The rising market has driven the increase in income for fruit farmers, but it has also led to the long-standing problem of "low prices hurting farmers". On the basis of stabilizing the planting scale and improving quality, Anyue actively extends the industrial chain, enhances added value, and vigorously develops deep processing.

Data shows that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the total output value of Anyue lemons has increased to 16.5 billion yuan.

On December 10, Jiang Changwei, the head of Sichuan Weiji Selection International Trade Co., Ltd., ended his trip to Indonesia and hurried to Malaysia, Vietnam, and other places to discuss lemon export business. 95% of the company's export business is self-operated, and the self-operated export value in 2024 has exceeded 200 million yuan.

The number of Anyue lemon foreign trade enterprises has increased from 2 to 31, and their products are exported to more than 30 countries and regions, with the self-operated export value exceeding 100 million yuan for three consecutive years.

Yang Chunyan, the deputy general manager of Sichuan Xiningle Fruit Industry Co., Ltd., said that foreign countries have strict standards for imported lemons, and exporting to France requires testing more than 700 indicators.

The company's sorting workshop equipment can achieve automatic grading and sorting, with a daily processing capacity of 200 tons, improving the level of standardization. Anyue has built 65,000 mu of export registration bases, cooperate with 8 export ports, and has a global layout of 112 sales outlets, optimizing the customs declaration and inspection process.

Inside the Anyue Lemon Deep Processing Park in Sichuan, the production workshop of Sichuan Anyue Lemon Hyperacidity Biotechnology Co., Ltd. is bustling with activity. Lemons are processed into non-concentrated reduced cold-pressed lemon juice through 8 procedures, supplying well-known brands.

Zhang Chuanchong, the head of the company, introduced that 13 lemons can make 30 bottles of 300 mL drinks, and the market price is increased by four times. The honey lemon freeze-dried slices of Pengruiyuan Food Co., Ltd. have become a new growth point, with 10 jin of fresh fruit producing 1 kilogram of freeze-dried slices, priced at about 130 yuan. Anyue has gathered 33 deep processing enterprises, developing more than 200 products, covering the four major fields of daily chemicals, food, health care, and pharmaceuticals.

Tian Jinghua, the head of the Anyue County Lemon Industry Development Center, said that Anyue is the largest lemon production base county in China, and it has mostly entered the market in the form of fresh fruit or primary processed products with low added value in the past. In recent years, Anyue has shifted from primary processing to "equal emphasis on primary and deep processing", cultivating leading enterprises in deep processing, increasing the annual processing capacity to over 200,000 tons, and developing more than 200 products, enhancing brand influence and premium capabilities, gradually realizing the qualitative change of the industrial chain from "primary" to "deep".

【本文部分内容由AI辅助生成，特此声明。The author(s) generated part of the content in this work with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI), which is hereby declared.】