An interesting bit of news amid the coronavirus outbreak: AirAsia Group Bhd is considering flying durians into East Malaysia and Singapore as part of its plan to send fresh produce directly from farms to restaurants. Outfarm, the budget airline’s agriculture e-commerce arm, has been preparing its trucks and planes to transport food in the next three to four months, an operation which the company claims could reduce procurement costs by as much as 25%. According to Lalitah Sivanaser, the Chief Executive Officer of Outfarm:

“It’s the durian season now and we’re working very hard to get them on board… The Singaporeans, the Thais, as well Indonesians have reached out for durian exports using our platform.”

This talk of durians brings us back to our previous piece on the durian economy. In it, we discussed durians in China, as well as provided consolidated data on fruit farms and key indicators across Malaysia. Check it out here: Durians for China: A Preliminary View and Dashboard.