At 4:30 p.m., as the sun began to set in the west, the country roads of Shitouzhai Village in the Nanjing National Agricultural High-Tech Zone came alive. One electric scooter after another pulled out of people’s homes, each carrying baskets of blueberries with old cloth draped over the rims to shield them from the sun, as they bumped along toward the same destination. In the fields along the roadside, some late-ripening varieties still hung on the branches, but most of the berries had already been picked and placed in baskets—it was time to find buyers.
01#
Fresh Fruit Leaves the Village; Supermarket Stalls Stay Open Every Day
In Shitouzhai Village, when it comes to selling blueberries, Zhang Weiwei is the first person that comes to mind for many farmers. This young entrepreneur founded the Nanjing Blue Fatso Farmers’ Cooperative in the Agricultural High-Tech Zone in 2018. She grows nearly 50 mu of blueberries on her own farm while also helping nearby farmers find markets for their produce. With annual sales exceeding 60 metric tons, she has become the village’s “salesperson.”
This year, her family switched to a new farming method, resulting in a yield of only 10 metric tons, but the cooperative sold more than 70 metric tons in total—the vast majority of which came from neighboring farmers. “Uncle, the fruit in this basket is big today; it’s good enough for supermarkets, so we can get a higher price.” Zhang Weiwei crouched in the sorting shed, sorting the fruit while giving instructions to the farmers. For orders from supermarkets like Hema, the fruit is sorted, packaged, and sent directly to the warehouse; for stalls at the Zhongcai Wholesale Market, trucks leave before dawn every day. As soon as he finished one phone call, another would come in, and his hands never stopped moving.
02#
Frozen Fruit Stored in the Warehouse: Every Piece Has Its Place in the Cold Storage Facility
Being able to sell fresh fruit is a skill; being able to store it is a source of confidence. As the harvest season enters its latter half, pressure to sell fresh fruit is gradually increasing, so many villagers who can’t sell their fruit send it to Minghe Agriculture’s cold storage facilities.
A line had already formed at the warehouse entrance. The staff member took the basket of fruit, bent down to get a closer look, and ran his fingertips over the fruit, examining it from all angles: “This basket has uniformly sized fruit—not bad.” ” The numbers on the scale flickered; the person beside it jotted down the figures, then tore off a small, palm-sized slip of paper from the table and handed it over. It listed the order number, gross weight, net weight, and number of baskets. An elderly man took it, squinting as he examined it over and over, muttering, “Right, right, right—nothing’s missing.” He folded it up, tucked it into his pocket, patted the back seat of his electric scooter, and rode off.
Zhang Ming, the company’s manager, leased a newly built 800-square-meter cold storage facility in Shitouzhai Village, which includes a 200-square-meter freezer. Once the fruit was weighed, it was immediately transferred to the quick-freezing chamber at minus 35 degrees Celsius. As soon as the cold storage door opened, a cloud of white mist billowed out, and within minutes of entering, a layer of frost had formed on the surface of the fruit. Under the lights, workers sorted through the frozen fruit, removing any that were the wrong color. On the conveyor belt, a machine “clack-clack” sorted the fruit by size—the large ones fell to the right, the small ones to the left, each heading to its designated destination.
03#
“Yunguo” Launches; Single Fei Travels Far and Wide in the Live Stream
Cold storage has maintained its value, while live streaming has opened up even broader opportunities. At the Huangwanli Blueberry Cultural Experience Center, Xiong Kai, Secretary of the Shitouzhai Village Party Branch, is leading staff members and farmers in setting up their phones to go live. “Everyone, these blueberries were just brought in from the village. Try one—aren’t they crisp?” Comment messages flashed across the screen, and order notifications kept ringing nonstop. The farmers gathered around leaned in to check the numbers, and one of them muttered under his breath, “These things sure sell fast.”
Huangwanli Village, which was recently selected for the 2026 Jiangsu Province “Characteristic Rural Landscape” Demonstration Project list, was the first place in Shitouzhai Village to grow blueberries and blackberries—a tradition that has continued for nearly 40 years. Led by the village Party branch, more than 800 farming households have joined forces to develop their businesses. Today, the village is home to over 100 online stores, with annual e-commerce sales exceeding 10 million. The village’s annual collective income stands at 4 million yuan, and the per capita disposable income of villagers is 41,000 yuan. Offline retail stalls drive volume, cold storage processing adds value, and live-streaming attracts new customers—these three areas complement each other, making life increasingly stable and secure.
Blueberries from Shitouzhai are picked straight from the bushes; some are delivered to supermarkets the same day, some are stored in cold storage awaiting transport to other regions, and others are sold to other provinces via live-streaming platforms. In the Nanjing National Agricultural High-Tech Zone, organizational leadership, technological support, and diversified sales channels have enabled these small blueberries to form an industrial chain and generate tangible income for farmers.
