EkoNiva at China’s Global Food & Hospitality Trade Show

The event was held in challenging times: due to the global coronavirus pandemics, the border between Russia and China is closed. Therefore, EkoNiva Food representatives could not participate in the show in person. However, with the help of the trusted distributor, Heihe Eyoujia Import, the company was able to arrange a booth at the exhibition.

‘Our promotional activity in China, including participation in dedicated trade shows attended by Chinese importers, food distributors and representatives of retail chains, has been very successful’, said Ildar Rachmatulin, Senior Export Manager at EkoNiva Produkty Pitanija. ‘The lockdown prevented EkoNiva Food participants from coming to China, so we decided to help our partner and invested our funds in arranging a booth and preparing brochures and other advertising material.’

Negotiations with Chinese importers, food traders and representatives of local retail chains were conducted and constructive meetings organized at the company's stand.

‘The Participation in the show has enabled us to determine the first-priority tasks which are to be tackled at this stage in order to continue successful promotion of the EkoNiva brand in China’, says Zhang Jie, Managing Director of the partner company Heihe Eyoujia Import and Export LLC from China. ‘Although the event has attracted fewer attendees than usual, we have managed to establish contact with a number of prospective clients and are currently discussing future deliveries with them. Besides the existing points of sale in the North of China – provinces of Heilongjiang and Liaoning, - EkoNiva products will now be available on the shop shelves of Fujian.’

‘Milk with the fat content from 0% to 3.5% is the most popular product in China‘, states Ildar Rakhmatullin, Exports Manager of EkoNiva Food. ‘We can deliver milk in beverage packages with screw cap if the order volume exceeds 100,000 liters per each fat content category. The number of orders keeps growing, so we are planning to expand the product range for China.’

The products showcased at the booth as well as those sold in Chinese shops feature the original Russian package. Why hasn’t the language been changed? This decision was based on the request of EkoNiva’s partners in China. The thing is that Chinese people show more trust in the brand if the information on the package is in the original language. It is considered to be a sign of high quality. EkoNiva will consult its distributors in China to make further decisions on the package design.

EkoNiva products are currently sold in the shops of Heihe, Suifenhe and Harbin. So far, only one processing plant of EkoNiva – the facility located in Anna, Voronezh oblast – has been authorized to export products to China. In 2021, the company is planning to receive an export permission for one more facility – the new processing plant in Novosibirsk.

‘The first export of our UHT milk was carried out by ship via the seaport of Dalian’, continues Ildar Rakhmatullin. ‘At the end of November, we are planning to ship our products by railway to Manchuria. It will be a pilot project aimed at demonstrating the advantages of railway transportation compared to shipment by sea. Our company intends to develop road and railway transportation in the future since prompt delivery is one of the competitive advantages of Russian suppliers as compared to the European ones.’