Anyue Lemon Prices Halve to RMB 3-4 per Jin as Exports Drop 30%

In 2026, domestic yellow lemons saw price declines during the peak consumption season. Liu Cheng, a lemon trader in Anyue, Sichuan, said that origin prices for yellow lemons fluctuated downward, falling from about RMB 6-7 per jin a few months ago to RMB 3-4 per jin in early August. Public data from Xuewang Lemon, a subsidiary of Mixue Bingcheng, showed that the purchase price of Youliike yellow lemon raw fruit in Sichuan and Chongqing remained stable at around RMB 7 per jin in early 2026, then began to decline around April, dropping to about RMB 4.5 per jin in early July. In contrast, the purchase price in early July 2025 was about RMB 7.5 per jin, meaning 2026 prices nearly halved. Data from Yimutian, an agricultural B2B platform, also showed that domestic yellow lemon origin prices have been declining since April 2026, and instead of rising during the August consumption peak, they fell, contrasting with the price increase seen during the 2025 peak season.

The price decline is mainly due to changes in supply and demand. On the supply side, during the 2025-2026 production season, weather conditions in core production areas such as Anyue, Sichuan, returned to normal, fruit setting improved significantly, and output returned to normal levels. Tan Xiaolin, director of the Anyue County Modern Agricultural Industrial Park Management Committee, said that Anyue's overall output in the 2025-2026 season increased by about 30% compared with the previous season. Reduced exports further increased domestic supply. Affected by the China-Europe geopolitical conflict, Anyue's lemon exports in 2026 fell 30% from the same period in 2025, and the return of export-bound goods led to higher inventory at origin than in previous years. In addition, yellow lemons have a long storage period, from harvest in late September of the previous year to storage until July-August of the following year. Summer is already the tail end of inventory with more inferior fruit, and with the new season's lemons about to hit the market in large quantities, prices came under pressure.

China's lemon industry has reached a production scale of over one million tonnes. Currently, domestic consumption is dominated by yellow lemons and perfume lemons. Yellow lemons mainly come from Anyue in Sichuan and Tongnan in Chongqing, with total output exceeding 950,000 tonnes. Perfume lemons are produced in scattered areas in Guangdong and Guangxi, with total output of about 250,000 tonnes. Anyue, Sichuan, is the largest lemon production area in China, mainly growing the Youliike yellow lemon variety. The local lemon planting area is 480,000 mu (about 32,000 hectares), with an annual output of 600,000 tonnes. Its planting area, output, and market share each account for more than 70% of the national total. In 2025, the comprehensive output value of the entire Anyue lemon industry chain reached RMB 17.149 billion. More than half of domestic fresh lemon demand comes from B-end procurement such as tea drinks and retail, and almost all fresh perfume lemons go to the tea drink channel.

The downstream lemon tea drink segment is undergoing cyclical changes. Data from the third-party platform Zhai Men Can Yan showed that as of the end of 2025, there were about 200 lemon tea brands nationwide. Lemon tea drinks are a category with relatively high gross margins, with some brand stores achieving gross margins of up to 70% on lemon tea drinks. Lemons are citrus fruits that are easy to transport and suitable for standardized cold-chain logistics, with lower spoilage rates than fresh fruits such as strawberries and watermelons. In recent years, new tea drink brands that focus on lemons have continued to emerge, with store scales ranging from hundreds to thousands. New tea drink brands such as Heytea and Mixue Bingcheng also sell lemon-based beverages. Among large retail supermarkets, after Sam's Club developed a hit small lime juice product, many retailers have made lemon-based drinks a direction for their private-label development. RT-Mart, Yonghui Superstores, Walmart, and others all have private-label lemon drinks on sale.

In response to price fluctuations, the industry is accelerating its transformation toward deep processing. Currently, about 32% of Anyue's fresh lemons are processed, while about 68% are sold directly as fresh fruit. Anyue has 561 processing enterprises, including 33 deep-processing companies, which have developed more than 200 products in 18 categories, including lemon juice, lemon slices, essential oils, and cosmetics. Its processing capacity accounts for 85% of the national total. Tan Xiaolin said that in the next step, Anyue will improve unified standards, build a production-sales matching platform, improve cold-chain infrastructure, coordinate fresh fruit exports and deep processing, strengthen regional public brands, enhance risk protection, and continuously improve industrial resilience and the bargaining power of the production area.