What changed
Yudao Family Farm in Yushao Village, Tianjin’s Jizhou District, has turned softened chicory from a rare imported-style crop into a large-scale local business. Owner Wang Yu began production in 2013 after studying Dutch techniques; the farm now covers 1,375 mu, has annual capacity of 2,000 tonnes and stores up to 8,000 tonnes of roots.
The farm says about 80% of China’s softened chicory comes from its operation. In 2025, it put 600 tonnes of organic chicory on the market, generating 15.51 million yuan, and it is preparing a second submission of chicory-root samples to Japan after more than 800 tests for possible processing exports.
Why it matters
This is a vegetable business built around patience and controlled conditions. After autumn harvest, chicory roots spend about two months “sleeping” at minus 15°C. They are then moved into dark rooms, where crisp, slightly bitter buds grow. That unusual process has created daily work for 40 to 50 villagers and tied a specialised crop to the local rural economy.
The farm’s next step is more ambitious than selling fresh vegetables. Wang wants Japanese processors to extract ingredients from the roots for drinks and cosmetics. Commercial exports or processing contracts are not yet assured, but the testing shows where the farm believes its future value lies: not only in growing chicory, but in turning it into higher-value products.
That makes the operation a useful example of how a niche crop can take root far from its Mediterranean origins. The farm’s reported market share has not been independently quantified, but its scale, cold-storage network and long-running organic certification suggest that chicory is no longer a novelty in this corner of northern China.
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