Eating foreign goods: Buying wilted apples, fallen grapes, and broken melons

Korean wilted apples, grapes falling off the branch, grapes with wilted stems, Korean melons with broken skin... just reading about them tells you the quality, but these imported fruits are still sought after by housewives because of their super cheap prices, some of which are even cheaper than Chinese fruits.

Withered apples, fallen grapes... still foreign goods

Excited because she had just ordered a 10kg box of Korean apples for only 150,000 VND, or 15,000 VND/kg, Ms. Phan Dieu Thu - an employee of a software company in Tran Khat Chan (Hai Ba Trung, Hanoi) boasted: "Just when we ran out of apples, I was able to order them right away, today is considered lucky."

After showing off, Ms. Thu immediately ordered 3 more boxes of cheap Korean apples for her female colleagues in the same room, but she had to inform them that the fruit store staff refused because they were out of stock.

“These are Korean Fuji apples, but because the apples are a bit wilted, the store is selling them for 1/5 of the price of fresh apples,” she said, adding that wilted apples are definitely not as crispy and delicious as fresh apples, but they are also fine to juice or cut into salads. The important thing is that the apples are super cheap, and you can rest assured that they are not like apples bought at the market.

Withered apples, grapes falling off the branch, and imported melons with spotted skin are being sought after by women because of their super cheap prices.

Not only hunting for apples, Ms. Thu also often buys Korean grapes with wilted stems and Korean melons with broken skin. According to her, among these fruits, she finds the best bargain is buying Korean Kyoho grapes for only 75,000 VND/kg (the price of fresh-stemmed grapes is 320,000 VND/kg). Because, these grapes only have slightly wilted stems, the rest of the fruit quality is completely normal.

Another type is Korean melon with damaged skin, the price I bought it for was only 45,000 VND/kg, while Korean melon without defects was up to 200,000 VND/kg.

“Most melons with chipped skin just need to be peeled a little deeper to be eaten normally. Some melons even have a chipped skin as small as the tip of a fingernail. If you don't pay attention, you won't know that the melon has a chipped skin.”

However, to buy these types of imported fruits at super cheap prices, she often has to hunt quite hard. Because, this type is not available often, especially when it is available, it sells out very quickly.

Similarly, Ms. Dang Ngoc Phuong in Vuong Thua Vu (Thanh Xuan, Hanoi) is also a crazy "fan" of Korean fruits and imported fruits with defects such as: wilted Korean apples, scratched Korean melons, wilted Envy apples, grapes with fallen branches and wilted stems, Australian oranges,...

Actually, buying defective fruit like this to eat is also a matter of luck, some days you can buy good fruit, the quality is 8/10 compared to the real thing, some days it is only 7/10, especially the type of grapes that are separated from the branch, the fruit is usually damaged at the stem. But because of the cheap price, women still choose to buy. Some types are 1/2 the price, some are only 1/5 the price of the real fruit.

Because of their super cheap prices, these types are extremely popular.

Defective fruit is selling like hotcakes.

Acknowledging that women are racing to buy defective imported fruits, Mr. Vu Ngoc Nam, manager of a chain of imported fruit stores in Hanoi, said that after each warehouse is stocked or cleared, defective fruits are filtered out and liquidated as they are shipped. Sometimes, the number of customers ordering is 3-4 times larger than the amount of defective fruits for sale.

Like the other day, on the fanpage, there was a post for sale of 18 boxes of withered Korean apples, 15 kg of fallen Korean milk grapes, and 10 boxes of withered grapes. Just 15 minutes later, the customers had gone back and forth and taken away all the fruits.

Mr. Nam added that imported fruits are often expensive, so the goods sold must be guaranteed to be genuine and of consistent quality. Therefore, when selling, we have to filter out defective goods with wilted stems, wilted skins, chipped skins or fallen branches, etc. However, defective fruits are often as expensive as fresh shrimp, and as much as they are available, they are sold out.

Ms. Tran Huyen Trang, owner of an imported fruit store on Le Trong Tan (Thanh Xuan, Hanoi) also admitted that every time she posted a sale of grapes that had fallen off the branch, withered apples, or oranges with damaged skin, the store's phone rang continuously, and the staff on duty at the fanpage did not have time to reply to customers' messages.

“These defective fruits are not available regularly, and the quantity is sometimes large and sometimes small. However, every time they are posted for sale, women order them in droves, as if they are waiting for the right time. The other day, I sat down to count them, the store only had 8kg of Korean milk grapes off the branch for sale at 90,000 VND/kg (the genuine type costs nearly 500,000 VND/kg) but there were nearly 100 customers ordering them, of which the few customers usually order 1kg, the many customers buy up to 2-3kg. However, the staff had to refuse and make an appointment for the next time,” Ms. Trang shared.

According to Vietnamnet