Don't Get Cheated Anymore! Five Painful Lessons of Fuzhou Food Exports

"Mr. Zhang has been very headache recently - his own-produced Fuzhou fish balls, which have excellent quality, were stuck in the cumbersome customs declaration process when exporting." Such stories are not uncommon in the Fuzhou food industry. As an important node on the Maritime Silk Road, Fuzhou has many specialty foods such as Buddha Jumping Over the Wall, olives, and jasmine tea, but how can these "Min Flavors" be smoothly taken to the world? Today, we will talk about the key points of Fuzhou Food Export Agency.

According to the data from Fuzhou Customs, food exports in 2022 increased by 17% year-on-year, but still 32% of small and medium-sized enterprises gave up overseas orders due to process problems. Professional agency services can solve three pain points:

• Regulatory Barriers: Different countries have hundreds of different requirements for food additives, labels, etc.
• Logistics Traps: Frozen food transportation requires -18℃ full, and ordinary freight forwarders cannot guarantee it.
• Certification Maze: The processing cycle for professional qualifications such as HACCP and Halal Certification can be as long as 3-6 months.

Taking the typical case served by Zhongshitong as an example, there are mainly three golden tracks for Fuzhou food to go overseas:

• Frozen Foods: Fish balls, meat swallow, etc. have their shelf life extended to 18 months through IQF single-piece quick-freezing technology.
• Snack Foods: Olive preserved fruits meet the EU healthy food standards after being transformed by a low-sugar process.
• Seasonings: The sauce for Shaxian noodles meets the testing requirements of the US FDA through microbial control.

Ms. Li's seasoning factory just relied on professional agency services and completed the Korean import filing that originally took half a year in only 45 days.

Agency institutions in the market are mixed, and it is recommended to focus on examining:

• Whether it has the AEO Customs Advanced Certification Qualification
• Whether it has successful operation cases of similar foods
• Whether it can provide a full-chain service from testing, customs declaration to overseas warehousing

A jasmine tea enterprise once suffered a return of the whole batch of goods due to choosing a low-cost agency because the pesticide residue standard did not meet the requirements, resulting in a loss of more than 2 million yuan.

With the opening of the food category on platforms such as TikTok Shop, Fuzhou enterprises have welcomed the opportunity to go overseas with "small batches and high frequencies". Through the overseas warehouses established by the agency, the following can be achieved:

• Deliver to Southeast Asian consumers within 48 hours
• Reduce the return and exchange rate by 60%
• Save 35% of logistics costs

When the aroma of Buddha Jumping Over the Wall wafts into a Parisian restaurant and the sweetness of olives appears in a New York supermarket, behind this is the joint effort of countless Fuzhou food people and professional agents. Are your products ready to join this "Min Flavor Expedition"? Welcome to share your overseas confusion or success experience in the comment area.