Premium 20 times over! How Rong'an Golden Tangerine turned the "cold winter" into a "warm winter" for citrus?

The citrus market in 2025 can be described as a "cold winter," with popular varieties such as Ehime, Golden Autumn Sugar Orange, and Gannan Navel Orange all experiencing a downturn, with the lowest purchase price being only 1 yuan/jin. However, amidst this downturn, Rong'an Crisp Honey Orange has carved out its own market: the purchase price at the source is maintained between 10-42 yuan/jin, the market retail price is as high as nearly 100 yuan, and the overseas selling price has even exceeded 200 yuan/jin, which is 10-20 times the price of ordinary oranges.

The high price of Rong'an Crisp Honey Orange is maintained due to two factors: on the one hand, there is rigid cost, with Rong'an Indispensable Ecological Agriculture Company estimating that the cost of agricultural materials, infrastructure, and labor during the planting stage alone exceeds 10 yuan/jin; on the other hand, there is the scarcity of quality, with its soluble solids content reaching up to 32 degrees, far exceeding the 12-15 degrees of ordinary oranges. Coupled with the brand premium, the brand value of Rong'an Orange in 2025 rose to 6.52 billion yuan, making it the geographical indication product with the largest increase in brand value in Guangxi.

After its unified market launch on November 8 this year, Rong'an Orange quickly ignited the market: at the promotion meeting in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, 18 buyers signed orders worth 360 million yuan on the spot; as of November, overseas orders reached 70 million yuan, with 38 million yuan already delivered, and the products were exported to more than 10 countries including the United States and Canada. The domestic market is equally hot, and now it is difficult to see retail stalls selling oranges in Rong'an County. Instead, Rong'an Orange products are mainly circulated through trading markets, buyers from other regions, and e-commerce platforms, and they were quickly sold out upon listing.

In 2025, the planting area of Rong'an Crisp Honey Orange reached 231,000 mu, an increase of 2.2% from 2024, with an estimated total output of 287,000 tons. This growth is not a blind expansion but a planned and orderly development under government planning, with the planting density in the core production area strictly controlled within 1,650 plants per hectare.

Compared to the once-high-priced Sunshine Rose, which exceeded 100 yuan/jin, the future of Rong'an Crisp Honey Orange is more promising in the industry. The collapse of Sunshine Rose was due to three out-of-control factors: the lack of geographical constraints led to the planting area exploding from 150,000 mu to 2 million mu, the lack of quality bottom line caused taste abnormalities, and the lack of patent protection led to the proliferation of "fakes," ultimately falling into the dilemma of "low quality and low price." In contrast, Rong'an Crisp Honey Orange has built three moats: geographically, the unique climate between 24°46′-25°34′ north latitude and the exclusive sandstone and shale soil, combined with the unique combination of climate, soil, and ecological environment, make it impossible for non-core production areas to replicate its flavor, and it is difficult to achieve the same quality even if transplanted to other places; even if other regions increase their yield (such as the Binchuan production area, which has a yield per mu twice that of Rong'an), they cannot replicate the flavor of Rong'an's core production area; and it has the national plant new variety rights (CNA2020150497.9), with a 20-year protection period that can prevent blind expansion; and standards with 204 full-chain standards and 130 authorized enterprises to control, preventing the sale of substandard products.

In the future, as production capacity is gradually released, the price of Rong'an Crisp Honey Orange may fall back to the range of 50-80 yuan. However, due to the dual support of cost and quality, it will still be far higher than ordinary oranges. The increase in the production of deep-processed products will also reduce the impact of price fluctuations in fresh fruit on the industry. Currently, Rong'an has developed more than 20 types of products including orange cakes, juice, and tea.