China’s lust for the world’s smelliest fruit is making people rich

Before he started a company 15 years ago selling the world’s smelliest fruit, Eric Chan had a well-paying job writing code for satellites and robots. His family and friends were puzzled when he made the career change. The fruit, durian, has long been a cherished part of local cultures in South-East Asia, where it is grown in abundance. A single durian is typically the size of a rugby ball and can emit an odour so powerful that it is banned from most hotels. When Chan began his start-up in his native Malaysia, durians were cheap and often sold from the back of trucks. Then China acquired a taste for durian in a very big way. Last year, the value of durian exports from South-East Asia to China was $US6.7 billion ($10.1 billion), a twelvefold increase from $US550 million in 2017. China buys virtually all the world’s exported durians, according to United Nations data. The biggest exporting country by far is Thailand; Malaysia and Vietnam are the other top sellers. Today, businesses ...