On April 19, the "Quality and Safety lmprovement for Fruits & Vegetables Products Supply Chain Forum" was held in Chongqing.  The Forum shared some progress and plans of the Supporting Schemes for MSMEs (SAFE Project) from the perspective of sustainable development and food safety and quality improvement, and introduced the practical experience and results of enterprises' actions to improve the quality and efficiency of fresh fruit and vegetable agricultural products. It is also introduced the practical experience and achievements of enterprises in carrying out quality and efficiency improvement actions for fresh fruits and vegetables, and held in-depth discussions with nearly 100 participants on the topic of drivers and barriers to sustainable development of fresh fruits and vegetables supply chain.

At the forum, representatives of the China Chain Store & Franchise Association gave a detailed introduction to the series of standards released in 2022, such as the "Production Evaluation Requirements for Suppliers of Edible Agricultural Products", as well as the CFFA’s work and plans to promote food safety. In particular, it was mentioned that in 2023, with the supported by  EU SWITCH-Asia project, it is one of the CCFA's priorities to continue to promote the implementation of the "SAFE Project". The project will train  2,000 agricultural cooperatives(CAFs) by 2025, reaching tens of thousands of farmers with technical trainings. CCFA will also develop online video courses for this purpose to help the training be carried out effectively at all levels. CCFA plans to prepare an "Implementation Guide for Receiving In-Stock Checking Edible Agricultural Products for Retailers" to help companies improve standardization in the operation process of receiving and accepting agricultural products in stores or in DCs.

Mr. Shen Huafeng, General Manager of Fresh Legend Supermarket, spoke on the theme of "Improving quality and efficiency of fresh fruit and vegetable products", introducing in detail the standardization of fresh produce, development of agricultural products with regional characteristics, improving efficiency and reducing costs. Especially in the aspect of improving efficiency, the company has invested a lot of energy and financial resources to develop reusable plastic crates and learn from foreign advanced experience. Now, the company's reusable plastic crates , including carriers, can be easily transported as a whole, which greatly improves efficiency. Through the transportation of reusable plastic crates , not only the cost can be reduced, but also the loss of goods can be controlled. The standardized reusable plastic crates  enable more standard management of commodities and reduce losses. After calculation, we are able to save about 15 million CNY per year.

Chen Jianguo, Food Safety Director of Yonghui Supermarket, introduced his experience in exploring the safety and high quality development of fresh fruit and vegetable produce. Yonghui Supermarket has established 600 direct or indirect direct picking bases nationwide. In order to ensure the quality of fresh produce, several measures have been taken, including strengthening the chain testing system, popularizing the knowledge of banned pesticides, and reducing the amount of pesticides used. In addition, Yonghui Supermarket also ensures that all products can be traced back to the source by promising to meet the standard certificate of conformity, a traceability system and a testing system that pulls together the whole chain. Through the supply chain platform, the production and sales synergy is realized, which can pull through with the demand at the store end in real time. While ensuring quality, the value of the synergy of each chain link is maximized by reducing costs and controlling the costs of the distribution link.

As a representative of the Chinese partner of the "SAFE Project", Zhou Hui, Deputy Researcher of the Institute of Agricultural Economics of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, , introducing the research and main findings of the whole chain of the project. She also analyzed the new policy developments to promote the quality and efficiency of fruits and vegetables, including the new requirements of policies,. There are currently three major driving factors for the sustainable development of fresh fruits and vegetables, namely, consumer growth and upgrading, active support from local governments, and positive response from retail enterprises and growers. From the market side, retail enterprises pay more attention to food safety, standardized planting, and have strict harvesting standards; from the production side, growers actively use their wisdom and adopt various wonderful tricks to achieve green production. At the same time, there are also many obstacles, such as climate change exacerbates the possibility of pests and diseases, the aging of the rural workforce is not conducive to the application and popularization of new technologies, the empowering effect of information technology on farmers' production and life needs to be enhanced, etc. She also brought to the delegates the suggestion of new product identification and development of fruits and vegetables. In the project research, it was found that supermarket enterprises shopping for fresh fruit and vegetable products are mainly concentrated in the traditional excellent production areas.

The  SAFE projectis jointly implemented by the China Chain Store & Franchise Association (CCFA), the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development (IAED) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the IVL Swedish Academy of Environmental Sciences (IVL). The project is supported by the EU's "Switch Asia" sustainable production and consumption promotion project, and the implementation period is from March 2022 to September 2025. The project empowers small and medium-sized enterprises, cooperatives, and farmers in the upstream of the agricultural product supply chain from the market side, supporting the green production and quality improvement of fruit and vegetable agricultural products.

标准化果蔬周转筐应用示范单位（第一批）获得颁发证书

Standardized fruit and vegetable reusable plastic crates application demonstration unit

Standardized fruit and vegetable reusable plastic crates application demonstration units (the first batch) were issued certificates

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