A farmer is showing cherries at Finca Chicauma, in Santiago, Chile on December 5, 2019. (Xinhua/Jorge Villegas)

Nearly 90 percent of Chile's cherries end up as sweet treats across China, especially during the Chinese Spring Festival holiday season.

According to Chile's Fruit Exporters Association, 88 percent of the 2018-2019 season's harvest was shipped to China, and that figure in the 2019-2020 season is expected to match or surpass that record.

A typical crate of freshly picked cherries begins its journey in Lampa, a rural community in the greater Santiago Metropolitan Region in Chile.

Finca Chicauma, a cherry farm operated by Nativa Foods, has 30 hectares planted to cherry trees, which produce between 150 and 200 tons of cherries each year, with 95 percent of his cherries destined for Chinese households.

Pablo Morales, export director of Nativa Foods, told Xinhua that "very good sales" opportunities in China led the company to begin planting cherries in 2007.

"Today, our main goal is to export the fruit to the Chinese market, which has seen quite interesting growth in recent years," said Morales.

Some 80 pickers manually pick the cherries from trees that are between 1.5 and 2.5 meters tall. The farm plans to incorporate some Chinese technology to modernize its production.

Drones from China will be used to better monitor the orchards and keep fruit-eating birds at bay, Morales said.

The cherries are shipped to packing centers in refrigerated trucks which keep the fruit between 8 and 10 C.

General manager of Fushun Fruit SpA, Alonso Xu, said the Merquen packing plant has bought world-class processing machinery to ensure the fruit arrives in optimum condition.

Fushun Fruit SpA expects to export 1,000 tons of cherries by the end of the 2019-2020 season.

The season's first flight carrying more than 100 tons of cherries arrived in the city of Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang Province, in late November.

Cherries are arriving just in time for the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which falls on January 25, 2020.

Cherries make a nice gift  during lunar new year celebrations in China, Xu added.

Xinhua - Global Times