KOTA KINABALU: While red might be the colour most associated with Chinese New Year (CNY) that is now in full swing for two weeks, when it comes to fruits, mandarin oranges enjoy top billing.
Mandarin oranges are sought after during CNY as it is always considered a traditional symbol of good fortune.
This is because the word orange when spoken in mandarin sounds similar to the word “wealth”.
Most of the sellers around Luyang, Foh Sang and Bundusan imported these from China and Taiwan.
Vincent Chew,24, who helps his parents run the business in Luyang said they have been selling mandarins for more than two decades.
“We have been selling them during the CNY season for about 22 years now and we have been importing it from these two countries.
“Frankly, there are no differences between products from either one of the country.
“This is mostly related to the demand of our customers including our regulars, some favour those from China and some the later,” he said.
According to Vincent, the prices no matter what size keep increasing each year.
“It is due to our economy, it’s not really good for now plus the extra taxes we have to pay, that leads to a slight increase in price, probably about a couple of ringgit compared to last year.
“For instances, we are selling two sizes of mandarin oranges, medium and large. For the medium size it is RM40 per box of 8kg in 2019 and this year it is increased to RM42 per box. “For the large size, we sold it at RM48 last year and RM50 this year,” he said adding that the demand is still the same even if it’s compared to past years.
Vincent said they have regular customers who would usually order roughly 500 boxes of mandarin oranges.
“Our regular customers usually order hundreds of boxes each year. So in term of demand, the increase in price does not really affect the demand,” he said.
Mohd Yazali, 26, a supermarket marketing executive said it had been sourcing the fruit from China for two years now.
“Because of many Chinese people staying in the vicinity, the demands for the oranges are quite high, even higher this year,” he said. According to Mohd Yazali, the price increased slightly this year compared to last year.
“Last year it was RM67 per box of 40 mandarin oranges, this year it is RM77 which is RM10 more.
“The price changes are for all sizes and brands, all are more expensive this year,” he said.
An assistant manager of another supermarket, Tomy Galawis, 36, said they got their stocks from a supplier.
“Our supplier imported them from China and Taiwan and it has been the same for many years.
“However, because it is acquired from a supplier, the stocks are quite limited and whatever we have here right now would be the last batch and if all of these boxes finish, there will be no more left.
According to Tomy, this years’ CNY season has been quite a busy days for him because the demand has been much more compared to last year.
“One of our best mandarin oranges here are from Taiwan, this 2.8kg containing 16 oranges was RM69.90 last year and this year it is RM69, slightly cheaper,” he said.
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