Ordinary Gweilo

I think I have complained before about the vast array of ersatz fruit juice that litter the shelves of Hong Kong supermarkets. Brand names like ‘juicy’ and ‘fresh’ are used with reckless abandon even though the contents invariably include water, sugar and artificial flavouring and are made from concentrated juice.

In this rather upside-down world, the most natural packaged juice in Hong Kong is sold under the decidedly puzzling brandname of “Shine & Shine”. Their juice is made from squeezed oranges rather than concentrate, doesn’t contain any additives, and as far as I can tell it is not pasteurised. The only downside is that it only lasts a few days before it goes off. Yes, even if you keep it in the fridge. The ‘sell by’ date on the packaging doesn’t seem to make any difference as far as I can tell.

Which reminds me that as a child I bought some fresh orange and apple juice a few days before Christmas and didn’t realize that it needed to be kept in the fridge. Well, of course, I realized it when Christmas came and we wanted to drink the juice. For another experiment with keeping orange juice, see here.

Anyway, Shine & Shine are adopting an interesting marketing strategy (in conjunction with Park’n’Shop). A few months, they increased the official price (for a litre) from HK$25 to HK$30 but reduced the selling price to HK$13. Given that Tropicana sells for HK$26 or thereabouts, this made it very cheap by comparison. A few weeks on, and they seem to be increasing the selling price by HK$1 a week, presumably until they get back to the previous price of HK$25 or thereabouts. I wonder if this strategy will work?