One early morning, Zhao, a London resident, picked up a package of green pak choi from a store's cold storage area to take home and stir-fry with garlic for a taste of home.
"Consumers can now find not only long-storing cabbage but also fresh greens like pak choi and choy sum. With these greens, I can enjoy a home-style Chinese meal," he said.
This small scene is part of a much bigger story. China now exports over 830 types of agricultural products to more than 220 countries and regions. In 2025, China's agricultural exports reached 104.16 billion U.S. dollars, up 1.2 percent year on year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
RAISING QUALITY
In Anyue County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, the country's largest lemon exporter, the air is filled with the fresh scent of lemons. At a local packaging plant, golden lemons are sealed and shipped to markets across the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and beyond.
The key to their global appeal is quality. "Overseas markets, especially Southeast Asian countries, set high standards for pesticide residue limits. If products fail quality inspection, farmers will suffer major losses," said Li Junfeng, head of a local lemon technology firm.
To tackle this challenge, the technical center of local customs tracks and updates pesticide rules of major trading partners, providing guidance for farmers. The county has also developed a big data platform for the lemon industry, which includes automated sorting and smart irrigation.
Today, Anyue lemons are expanding beyond traditional markets including Russia and Southeast Asia, to Central and Eastern Europe and North America.
Beyond everyday goods, China's high-end ingredients are also finding a global audience.
In a production base for goose breeding in Linqu County, east China's Shandong Province, more than 1,000 Landes geese are being fattened for foie gras.
"We follow the French method, raising the geese for about 90 days before overfeeding," said Ma Lijun, general manager of a local food company. Linqu now produces over 5,000 tonnes of foie gras annually -- nearly 70 percent of China's domestic market and 20 percent of the global market.
In fact, China now produces 60 percent of the world's caviar, 45 percent of its foie gras, and more than 80 percent of its black truffles, allowing more consumers to taste the "world's three top delicacies."
EXPANDING VALUE CHAIN
"Selling fresh ginger brings thin margins, but processing it into sushi ginger multiplies the value several times," said Zhu Yingwen, manager at a ginger processing company in Laiwu District of Jinan City, Shandong Province. The facility is running at full capacity to meet orders from Germany and Sweden.
Laiwu has grown ginger for over 2,000 years, and now it has built a complete processing chain. Its premium products have reached Walmart and Carrefour in key consumer markets such as the United States, the Republic of Korea and Russia. Laiwu accounts for 30 percent of China's ginger exports, and 70 percent of the world's sushi ginger slices come from this city.
A similar story is unfolding in Caoxian County, also Shandong Province. The county produces one-sixth of China's total asparagus. One local company now sells asparagus in three tailored segments: tips of asparagus to France, stalks to Germany and roots to Spain.
"This approach matches different national tastes, boosts our margins and cuts costs by 5 percent," the firm's head said.
Meanwhile, agricultural trade is increasingly turning into industrial cooperation, with a growing focus on food processing.
Zaozhuang City, a major pomegranate-producing area in Shandong Province, has teamed up with firms from the Republic of Korea to develop a pomegranate-red ginseng drink that sells well in Southeast Asia. In 2025, the total output value of pomegranate industry in Zaozhuang exceeded 5.5 billion yuan (about 803.07 million U.S. dollars).
"We export about 150 tonnes of pomegranate juice to the Republic of Korea every year. In 2025, our NFC pomegranate drinks reached Russia with batch sales of 8,000 cases," said Li Yongshuai, a local company executive.
"Compared to previous years, the structure of China's agricultural exports has changed dramatically," said Hu Bingchuan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "With advancing agricultural technology, exports are moving beyond raw products toward processed, branded and high-end goods."