4 types of Chinese plums are dominating the Vietnamese market

The Plant Protection Department (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) said that although Vietnam has many varieties of plums, and plums are also grown in large commodity areas, we still import tens of thousands of tons of plums from China every year.

Meanwhile, according to a leader of the Plant Quarantine Sub-Department at the Northern Border Gate (Plant Protection Department), usually at the end of the season, Vietnamese specialty plums start to be imported in large quantities from China. Specifically, from around June to August is the time when Chinese plums start to flood the market.

In fact, although Vietnamese plums are out of season, there are still many different types of plums on the market. However, most of the plums sold in the market or on the streets today are Chinese plums.

Below are the types of Chinese plums that are being sold in abundance at the market:

Plum seo

This is the most common type of Chinese plum, covering all Vietnamese markets. The characteristic of Seo plum is that the fruit is green, when ripe it will gradually turn purple, the plum is small like Vietnamese rice plum, when eaten it has a sweet, crunchy taste, and the seeds are peeled off.

At Long Bien wholesale market (Hanoi), seedless plums are loaded onto large trucks to be sold to wholesalers at a price of 9,000-12,000 VND/kg depending on the type. At the local market, plums are usually sold by small traders at a price ranging from 30,000-40,000 VND/kg depending on the size.

Golden Plum

Yellow rice plum is also a type of plum from China that has been imported for decades. Yellow rice plum has a beautiful shiny yellow skin, the fruit is larger and more even than Seo plum, when ripe the yellow color will gradually turn red. However, this plum does not peel the seed, and is a bit sour and astringent.

Yellow rice plums are sold wholesale at wholesale markets at prices ranging from 6,000 - 7,000 VND/kg depending on the time. Retail prices at traditional markets or on the streets are usually around 20,000 - 30,000 VND/kg, depending on the type. Not as abundant as Seo plums, but rice plums also appear in abundance in the market with a consumption of several dozen tons per night at wholesale markets.

Pink plum

These days, passing by fruit stalls at the market, many people will mistakenly think that Moc Chau plums are not out of season yet. However, the pink plums with similar size and color to plums are definitely Chinese goods.

According to traders at the wholesale market, pink plums are plums from China, imported in small amounts in previous years, but this year's harvest has been good, so they have flooded into Vietnam in large quantities. Pink plums are as big as Moc Chau's large plums, and their slightly pink color looks similar to the plums when they are not fully ripe, so many people mistake them for Vietnamese specialty plums.

However, when you eat it, the inside is completely different. Instead of the red flesh like the plum, the inside of the pink plum is yellow, sour, crunchy, and has quite a few seeds.

Pink plums are usually sold wholesale at prices ranging from 20,000-25,000 VND/kg. Retail prices are around 40,000-45,000 VND/kg.

Black purple plum

The fourth type of Chinese plum appearing in the Vietnamese market is the black-purple plum. The characteristic of this type is that the fruit is huge, 2-3 times larger than the Moc Chau plum. The outside of this plum has a black-purple skin, but the inside is golden yellow and thick. The plum tastes a bit sour, when it is really ripe it will turn sweet but it is not as crunchy as the plums above.

Black purple plums usually have wholesale prices of around 20,000 VND/kg depending on the time, while retail prices range from 30,000-35,000 VND/kg. Currently, the black purple plum season in China has begun, so this type of plum is also widely sold in the markets.

Like Ice