Apple-rich China feels squeeze from juice demand

Apple-rich China feels squeeze from juice demand
China, the world’s biggest producer of apple juice, has more than doubled its capacity as demand for the juice as a substitute for orange juice grows. Still, supply is not enough..

GUANLI (China): It is peak harvest season in this village in northern China, and apples are piled high on both sides of the road, clogging the traffic of tractors, trucks and carts bringing in the crop from all around.

China is the world's top apple grower, accounting for nearly half of the global harvest.

It has also emerged as the world's biggest producer of apple juice, crushing more and more of its crop for exports to the US, Europe, Japan and even Australia, and accounting for about two-thirds of world supply.

Despite the apparent abundance of apples in Guanli, this year's crop has fallen short of the demand from juice manufacturers, which have expanded capacity faster than orchards can plant trees. The shortage was exacerbated by cold, wet weather that reduced the crop.

"Farmers grow apple wherever possible. All here have shifted from grains," said Zhou Yuliang, a farmer in Guanli, near Yantai, in China's top agricultural province of Shandong.

"Still the supply is not enough. There's a lot of demand from the juice sector," he said in early November, pointing to fields filled to the edges with apple trees.