North and south fruit merchants selling fresh fruit across mountains and seas. Digital freight platform Yunmanman helps improve efficiency and lock in freshness.

In the early hours of 2 am in June, in the Jiaodong Peninsula of Shandong, Zhanggezhuang Cherry Market in Yantai, Shandong, was already bustling with people. Anhui fruit merchant Hu Chengsai bent down, carefully examining the fresh fruits in the baskets, accurately selecting the products to be purchased that day. This town-level cherry trading market, which is leading in scale nationwide, is the core distribution hub for open-air cherries in the north. During cherry season, fruit merchants from all over the country gather here to send fresh fruits from the mountains to the north and south. At the same time, in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, a thousand miles away, the largest professional fruit wholesale market in the country - Jiaxing Fruit Market, was already buzzing with trucks. The fruit merchant "Little Shandong" Nie Ruiyang dispatched trucks filled with goods from the digital freight platform, coming from Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Hongqiao Airport, and Hangzhou Xiaoshan Airport. Cherries, lychees from Hainan, and high-end fresh fruits like apricots from Xinjiang were neatly arranged at various stalls, waiting for buyers from Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, and other places to come and make their selections. One in the north and one in the south, one receiving and one selling, the two practitioners rooted in the fresh fruit industry are at different nodes in the fresh fruit distribution chain in China. With the help of digital freight platforms, they connect the complete chain from orchards to dining tables and witness the iterative upgrade of the domestic fruit distribution industry. Platform support helps "fruit workers" bid farewell to fleet worries In China's vast fresh fruit market, direct sourcing from the origin + wholesale market distribution has always been the mainstream mode of distribution. With a vast land nurturing a variety of specialty fruits, fresh fruits mature seasonally throughout the year - citrus in winter and spring, watermelons in summer, apples in the autumn, all transported across the country to wholesale markets. Markets like Zhanggezhuang Cherry Market and Jiaxing Fruit Market serve as critical hubs on this industrial chain - the former rooted in the origin, aggregating fresh fruit sources; the latter based in the Yangtze River Delta region, radiating to almost half of China and becoming a hub for domestic and imported fruits. Countless fruit merchants like Hu Chengsai and Nie Ruiyang shuttle between the origin and wholesale markets, serving as the backbone of the fresh fruit circulation and bringing the freshest fruits to households. Hu Chengsai is a typical origin-based fruit merchant; he jokingly refers to himself as a "fruit worker," working throughout the year, especially busy during holidays. His previous experience as a truck driver forged an inseparable bond with the freight industry. In 2008, when strawberries from his hometown in Anhui were unable to be sold, he helped transport and sell them, stepping into the field of fruit procurement and sales. Now, he owns stalls at Haijixing Market in Bengbu, Anhui, and travels around the country following the rhythm of the ripening fruits - from March to June, he stays in Shandong, first acquiring cherry greenhouses in Weifang, then moving to Yantai to purchase open-air cherries; from July to October, he goes to Shaanxi to collect winter dates; from November to the Spring Festival, he stays in Sichuan to buy Ammi papaya oranges. He purchases over 1500 tons of various fresh fruits each year, requiring hundreds of different-sized trucks for transportation. Before using Yunmanman, in order to ensure transportation, Hu Chengsai purchased multiple trucks and hired drivers all year round, with vehicle inspections, insurance, and personnel salaries being a continuous high expense. If a truck broke down halfway, it would keep him up all night - not only was it costly, but since the shelf life of fruits is very short, any delay would result in extra losses. Six years ago, upon a recommendation from a colleague, Hu Chengsai downloaded Yunmanman, activated a 688 yuan membership, and completely bid farewell to the heavy burden of owning his own fleet. For example, during the cherry season in Yantai, Hu Chengsai's daily workflow was well-organized: he enters the market at 2 am to collect the fruits, at 3 o'clock the sorting workers are on duty, grading and boxing the cherries by size, busy until ten in the morning. During this time, through Yunmanman's car coordination, the trucks arrive on time at 10 o'clock, load and depart, and in less than ten hours, they can reach Bengbu. In other words, the cherries picked the previous early morning could be on the shelves of local fruit shops in Anhui the following morning - ultimate timeliness ensuring the freshness of the fruit. Relying on the platform for delivery year-round, the trustworthy Hu Chengsai has earned a full 5-star rating on the Yunmanman platform, with full marks in settlement, fulfillment, and evaluation. This "credit card" has become his confidence in using vehicles. During the peak cherry season, he would estimate the truck type and issue orders based on the amount of produce collected early in the morning around six o'clock, and within a few minutes, drivers would call to confirm, and within half an hour, they would be able to secure the contracted vehicles. Similarly, drivers with a 100% positive rating are also favored by cargo owners. Nie Ruiyang said that when arranging transportation, he tends to choose drivers with no negative reviews, "They are indeed good." For drivers with high behavior scores, they can unlock the ability to quickly request high-quality goods, forming a virtuous cycle of good service, high ratings, and more orders. Rooted in the market, "Little Shandong" exploits the fresh fruit transfer route Nie Ruiyang from Zaozhuang, Shandong, is a typical end-type fruit merchant in the market. He has been in the fruit business following family elders for over ten years and now settled in Jiaxing, focusing on high-end fast-moving fresh fruits like lychees, apricots, and plums. With only three to four close relatives collaborating, with specialized personnel purchasing from the origin, he stays in the market handling sales and intermediate transportation. It is estimated that he deals with a total of over 1700 tons of categories like lychees, apricots, and plums throughout the year. Ten years ago, Nie Ruiyang began using Yunmanman. At the time, the platform had been actively promoted, and with a 'let's give it a try' attitude, he embarked on the path of digital vehicle coordination. Recalling his experiences of finding vehicles from earlier years, he was filled with emotion. In the past, there was a logistics park next to the market, and finding a vehicle required calling out along the streets. During peak purchasing seasons, he had to reserve vehicles a day in advance, with low efficiency and no guarantee. Now, with Yunmanmans support, a mobile phone can complete the entire process from issuing orders, choosing vehicles, to communicating, and all order information, driver qualifications, and transportation trajectories are trackable, significantly increasing the sense of security. His main transport scenes are concentrated in the interconnection between the airport and the market: Hainan lychees are picked in the early morning, packaged at noon, transported to the airport in the afternoon, and arrive in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and other airports at night, immediately transferred to the Jiaxing market registered through the Yunmanman platform, and flow to various terminal stores in the Yangtze River Delta the next morning. During peak seasons, Nie Ruiyang needs to call on seven to eight vehicles to transport simultaneously. Nie Ruiyang explained that with convenient road networks, efficient navigation, and efficient vehicle finding on the platform, the multiple advantages combined allowed the circulation speed of high-end fresh fruits to repeatedly break through limits. Credit as the foundation, digital freight reshapes fresh logistics The two fruit merchants, with two different operating models, share a high level of consensus: digital freight platforms have reconstructed traditional fresh fruit logistics. In the past, fruit transportation relied on offline connections, hailing vehicles on the roadside, and privately owned fleet, which was costly, slow, and risky; now, digital platforms integrate national transportation capacity, matching various types of vehicles such as 4.2-meter high-side vehicles, 9.6-meter refrigerated vehicles, and large semi-trailers as needed, with each serving its own niche, significantly reducing overall transportation costs. The credit evaluation system built by the platform has become an invisible cornerstone of fresh fruit circulation: shipper star ratings and driver behavior ratings are publicly available, with those who keep their word gaining more cooperation opportunities, while those with bad behavior are constrained. Hu Chengsai's outstanding behavior score and Nie Ruiyang's preference for highly rated drivers reflect the credit value in the fresh logistics field. From the bright red cherry baskets in Yantai to the abundant fresh fruit stalls in Jiaxing, from the sorting lights in the origin at midnight to the unloading noises in the market at dawn, trucks bearing the Yunmanman logo shuttle between urban and rural areas, origin, and market, connecting China's vast fresh fruit territory. When asked about his company name, Nie Ruiyang smiled and waved his hand: "I don't have a name, I used to have a fruit shop, and everyone called me 'Little Shandong'." The vast Chinese fresh fruit market is supported by millions of ordinary practitioners like him, who travel north and south with the fragrance of fruits in the four seasons, breaking through regional and time constraints with the help of digital freight, allowing fresh fruits from all directions to circulate smoothly. On June 12, Hu Chengsai officially ended this year's cherry purchasing journey in Yantai. After a brief rest, he will head to Shaanxi to start winter jujube procurement. Currently, the annual fruit peak season has already begun, and trucks loaded with fresh fruits are gearing up to set off, heading to various places, adorning countless fruit plates.