JD.com have announced today that they’re working with Japanese chemical manufacturing corporation, Mitsubishi Chemical to introduce fresh food production chain.
The partnership is aiming to bind agricultural technology and the marketplace’s infrastructure to offer customers fresh food at JD’s 7FRESH supermarkets. It will see an opening of an 11,040 square meter plant centre which will use a hydroponic culturing system, solar light and a close seeding production environment via artificial light to accelerate the growth of crops. The hub will start cultivating vegetables including spinach, cabbage, red and green lettuce and then will move on to introducing fruits and more vegetables in future.
JD.com says that the initiative, akin to AmazonFresh, will see customers consuming safe, nutritious and environmentally friendly food available both online and in physical stores. The factory is linked with JD’s logistics network so shoppers will be able to get fresh vegetables as soon as they’re cropped.
The hub is set to see temperature, humidity, light, and liquid fertiliser automated by the factory’s system without the use of agrichemicals and pesticides. Consumers will enjoy higher quality vegetables than if cultivated in the field as the result of the facilities that deliver 80% more folate, 32% more vitamin C, 25% more potassium and 37% more phosphorus. As Chinese consumers put a high importance in food quality, says the marketplace, the new initiative would bring transparency in food production to the nation that had suffered soil problems due to the increase of population.
“The JD Plant Factory in Tongzhou marks JD’s entry into the very beginning of the fresh food production chain, allowing us to guarantee that the fresh goods we sell have been treated with the care JD applies to everything we do. JD’s supply chain technology, logistics network and e-commerce expertise combined with Mitsubishi Chemical’s sophisticated growing technology puts us in an ideal position to create an entirely new model for agriculture, and cultivates a fresh and healthy lifestyle in China.”
-Xiaosong Wang, president of JD FMCG and food businesses
As JD.com is set to introduce a new offering to their customers they still lag behind AmazonFresh, which offers a much more extensive food range. However, as the marketplace are investing heavily into their goods offering will we see them outdoing Amazon’s grocery delivery service?
