A Three-pronged Strategy: Diversified Marketing, Value-added Processing, and Export Expansion Driving the Collaborative Growth of an Integrated Strategic Agricultural Alliances

Cathy Deng（China Productivity Center Agriculture Management Department）

Amid the tides of globalization and digital transformation, agriculture faces mounting challenges, like the rising production costs, climate change, and intensified market competition. In response, the Agriculture and Food Agency has advanced its Strategic Agricultural Alliance program into a new 2.0 phase—moving toward an agricultural ecosystem model that features cross-industry collaboration and market connectivity. The goal is to generate innovative, high value-added solutions and create broader impact through new business drivers.

The essence of the Strategic Agricultural Alliance lies in the complementarity and sharing of resources and capabilities. By integrating the professional expertise and market strengths of diverse stakeholders, the alliance creates a new added value throughout the entire value chain.

With a shared long-term vision, the program is driven by three core policies— diversified marketing, value-added processing, and export expansion—collectively known as the “three prongs” of agricultural advancement. These efforts highlight five key values:

Worth – Co-creating value through the joint development of agricultural brands;
Organization – Fostering collaboration through shared technology and coordinated growth;
Responsibility – Upholding product accountability to ensure food safety and sustainable production;
Love – Building mutual trust and inclusive, reliable partnerships;
Devotion – Sharing profits by jointly bearing risks and reaping the rewards of progress.

Through this approach, the Strategic Agricultural Alliance program aims to drive integration and growth, shaping a thriving and mutually beneficial agricultural ecosystem.

I. Diversified Marketing for Mutual Prosperity

The Strategic Agricultural Alliance program is closely aligned with government-driven diversified marketing initiatives, emphasizing a consumer-centered approach. By integrating resources across various industries, the program aims to build a recognizable and unified brand identity. Leveraging a broad spectrum of marketing channels—from physical retail outlets to online platforms—it extends its market reach, allowing both fresh produce and processed goods to engage a wider range of consumers.

Quality assurance, safe agricultural practices, and corporate responsibility form the core intersection between the alliance and consumers. These principles are not only fundamental to the marketing process but also essential to gaining consumer trust. Post-marketing profits and risks are to be shared collectively within the alliance. Therefore, profit-sharing mechanisms and risk thresholds must be clearly defined and flexibly structured prior to collaboration. Only then can partnerships endure and evolve into models of mutual benefit and shared prosperity.

Successful Cases of the Strategic Agricultural Alliance Program

As consumer awareness of food safety continues to grow, the Ministry of Agriculture has launched the “Three Labels and One Q” initiative. The “Three Labels” refer to the Organic Certification Label, the CAS (Certified Agricultural Standards) Taiwan Premium Agricultural Product Label, and the Traceable Agricultural Product Label. The “One Q” refers to a QR code system for product traceability. This initiative addresses market demands by responding to consumer-side concerns.

Through the Strategic Agricultural Alliance, the farm-to-table journey of food safety is brought to life by engaging consumers directly in the agricultural value chain. By adhering to the “Three Labels and One Q” standards, the Alliance promotes transparency in production and enforces clear food safety protocols, thereby enhancing consumer trust and strengthening brand value.

For example, the Red Bean Strategic Alliance exemplifies this approach through its hub-and-spoke system. In collaboration with the Kaohsiung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, the alliance has established a superior seed supply system, promoted traceability certification, developed contract farming and marketing through designated red bean production zones, and expanded post-harvest grading and packaging at the production site. Additionally, it has launched food and agricultural education programs and culinary experiences to build a fresh and safe image for domestic red beans.

The Strategic Agricultural Alliance is formed through a network of hub-and-spoke systems, bringing together specialized farmers, production and marketing groups, cooperatives, farmers’ associations, and business entities. Within this alliance, members engage in collaborative teamwork, professional division of labor, and enterprise-style management to share outcomes and benefits. By leveraging economies of scale, the alliance reduces costs and enhances product value, which are key drivers of profitability. In addition, profit-sharing and value-return mechanisms support the long-term sustainability of the collaborative model.

Take the Pomelo Strategic Alliance as an example. Initiatives such as the Pomelo Blossom Season Fun Run and gift box promotions across the top ten production regions demonstrate how the alliance integrates production and marketing resources. Branding efforts begin as early as the flowering stage, while nationwide promotional campaigns during the harvest season have successfully positioned pomelos as a cultural and creative gift of choice for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Leading the effort are the Ruisui, Madou, and Dongshan Farmers’ Associations, which spearheaded profit-sharing and value-return mechanisms. Their leadership and the collective endorsement of the alliance members have transformed regional initiatives into high-impact national buzz marketing campaigns.

Different agricultural alliances adopt flexible, multi-channel marketing strategies tailored to consumer demands and the unique characteristics of each product. Take the coffee industry as an example. Although Taiwan is not traditionally a coffee-consuming country, it now boasts the world’s highest density of freshly roasted and brewed coffee outlets. By first cultivating a market for specialty coffee, the industry has paved the way for the revival of domestic coffee cultivation. Today, Taiwan’s coffee sector features a fully integrated supply chain from upstream production to downstream retail.

The Coffee Strategic Alliance adopts a reverse marketing strategy that integrates diverse online and offline channels. Rather than relying solely on domestic promotion, it leverages international visibility to drive local awareness and sales. Led by the Taiwan Coffee Research Laboratory, the alliance partners with the Alliance of Coffee Excellence (ACE) to host the “Best of Taiwan” specialty coffee auctions. These events encourage coffee farmers to participate in international competitions, using high-quality beans to build global recognition. In turn, this international acclaim helps raise production standards and stimulate consumer interest in Taiwan’s domestic coffee industry.

[Operation Tips] Applying Business Tools to Achieve Production-and-Marketing Connection for a Win-win Outcome

The formation of a strategic agricultural alliance must be grounded in a well-defined business model. To enable precise and effective marketing, the first step is to clearly define the brand value of each product line within the alliance, identify key target markets, and determine core customer segments. To support this process, tools such as persona profiles, empathy maps, and customer journey maps are recommended. These tools help align alliance strategies with both B2B and B2C demands, laying the foundation for a win-win connection between production and marketing.

II. Innovation in Processing and Cross-Sector Transformation

Innovative processing is not only key to enhancing the added value of agricultural products, but also serves as a vital mechanism for adjusting supply-demand imbalances. Through policy guidance, regulatory support, and financial incentives, agricultural authorities continue to promote the development of new processed products driven by new technologies, methods, and packaging.

In an era of cross-industry integration, the core of product innovation within strategic agricultural alliances lies in adopting new approaches to uncover consumer needs. By leveraging digital tools, conducting market research, collecting consumer feedback, and analyzing future trends, the alliance can identify market gaps and develop competitive, innovative products.

The second core element of processing innovation lies in cross-sector collaboration on new technologies and packaging solutions. This approach serves as a critical pathway for transforming agriculture from a production-centered model into one that integrates processing and services. Through interdisciplinary cooperation, the alliance brings in technologies, knowledge, and market resources from other industries to develop new business models, co-develop technologies, and produce market-driven products with distinct competitive advantages. High-level integration across the value chain further enhances the competitiveness of these innovative processed products.

The third core element of processing innovation is long-term investment and risk diversification. Developing innovative processed agricultural products requires substantial technological and financial inputs, as well as sustained efforts in market promotion and brand building. By reaching consensus on investment strategies and integrating internal resources, the alliance can effectively spread risk, thereby enhancing market acceptance and ensuring long-term competitiveness of its products.

Successful Cases of the Strategic Agricultural Alliance Program

Strategic Agricultural Alliance 2.0 is pioneering a new era of coopetition in agriculture. While members within the same product category often compete with one another, the alliance seeks to identify innovative collaborative models through differentiation. By mapping out the core functions of central processing facilities within the hub-and-spoke system, it explores hybrid approaches that integrate production, processing, and distribution to create new synergies.

Take the Banana Strategic Alliance as an example. On the production side, the alliance organizes fruit and orchard quality evaluation contests to promote quality improvement across production units. These evaluations serve as the foundation for both fresh fruit sales and processing.

On the processing side, in addition to existing processed products developed within the alliance’s hub-and-spoke system, the lead organization—Taiwan Banana Research Institute—has taken the initiative to conduct product inventory and category segmentation demonstrations. In response to growing consumer interest in health-conscious diets, the institute has launched cross-industry collaborations with companies such as Kisaraki Food Co., Ltd. to develop innovative processed items, including frozen, non-ready-to-eat green banana fries and shelf-stable, ready-to-eat green banana fries.

In terms of distribution and marketing, barriers that typically define competitive relationships are broken down. Embracing circular economy and the modern dietary trend, the alliance promotes whole-plant value-added products. Leading processors within the alliance, including Taiwan Banana Research Institute, Jijibanana, Hung Yun Food Co., Ltd., and Kisaraki—jointly participate in marketing at international exhibitions to promote processed banana products.

Breakthroughs in innovative processing among competing alliance members are made possible through pioneering technologies led by innovators and profit-sharing arrangements, paving the way for new forms of collaboration.

Yunlin is the main area of peanut cultivation in Taiwan, with the Huwei Township Farmers’ Association serving as the lead organization of the Peanut Strategic Alliance. As a prominent regional agricultural processing center, its ISO-certified facility operates at a stable and efficient scale. By integrating internal resources and leveraging the strengths of nearby hubs within the alliance's network, the alliance has developed a range of innovative peanut-based products. These include traceable peanut oil from Huwei, spice-coated Black King Kong peanuts from the Yuanchang Township Farmers’ Association, festive gift boxes from the Citong Cooperative Farm, and newly packaged peanut candies from the Beigang Township Farmers’ Association.

Furthermore, cross-alliance collaboration is developed targeting the niche consumer groups who like side snacks to go with liquor. In partnership with “Uncle Sweet Potato” from the Sweet Potato Strategic Alliance, it co-developed a new peanut product called “Tiger King.” Another lead organization, the Chiayi Dongshi Grain Cooperative (Yu Shun Feng Tourism Factory), leverages its strong market access and expertise in leisure marketing to promote the alliance's peanut products through food and agricultural education programs, product roadshows, carnival-style events, and sales campaigns at major supermarkets, retail chains, hypermarkets, and Hope Plaza, thereby boosting the visibility of the alliance’s offerings.

The concepts of seasonal and region-specific marketing originate from Japan, where the rarity of products evokes a sense of exclusivity and delight among consumers. By leveraging the appeal of scarcity and combining it with innovation, agricultural products can more easily stand out in the market.

For example, the Kumquat Strategic Alliance uses the regionally unique kumquat crop from Yilan. The alliance ties its efforts to local revitalization by linking Yilan’s distinctive characteristics and developing three innovative processing themes: leisure tourism (hot spring season), health and wellness, and cultural creative cuisine. Innovative processed products with local specialty include kumquat honey sparkling wine, kumquat honey gift sets, ginseng kumquat paste health drinks, and creative kumquat baked goods.

Through local cross-industry collaboration in both technology and distribution, the alliance has successfully established a strong regional brand, boosted the local economy, and driven parallel growth in the kumquat industry and regional development.

[Operation Tips] Understanding Consumers’ Needs and Cross-Sector Collaboration Brainstorming

In addition to continuing to base agricultural product innovation and processing on business models, it is important to avoid product development that ignores actual market demand. The alliance can leverage existing consumer trend data and, when appropriate, apply various brainstorming and creative design tools such as Mind Mapping, Rapid Ideation, Reverse Brainstorming, the 5 Whys Method, Starbursting, and the Four Actions Framework.

By first developing prototypes of innovative processed products and cross-sector collaborations, the alliance can then apply experience-based research design to refine customer insights and drive continuous product innovation and optimization. At the same time, maintaining agility in adjusting product strategies and collaboration models in response to market feedback is key to sustaining competitiveness.

III. Expanding Export Markets and Global Deployment

As an island economy, Taiwan has a limited domestic market despite ample agricultural production capacity. Some agricultural products experience a “shallow-plate economy” (over-supply with limited absorption). Expanding export channels helps balance the market by alleviating excess supply, stabilizing domestic prices and farmers’ income.

With evolving times and increasingly diverse consumer demands, the key to profitability in agricultural products lies in quality. The first step in expanding export markets is ensuring that products meet international quality and safety standards, especially fresh fruits.

To this end, agricultural authorities promote export contract farming and registration, production and marketing traceability, and barcode tracking systems. These measures establish long-term stable cooperation between exporters and supplying orchard farmers. They assist in orchard planning, cultivation management, grading and packaging, and improvements in storage and transportation. Standard operating procedures are set to build a complete supply chain from production to sales, stabilizing the quality of export fruits while providing strong trust endorsements for the export market.

For fresh fruits, consumers value freshness and safety. Products arriving at the consumer end in fresh condition and good quality are more likely to be favored, allowing producers and distributors in the supply chain to profit, thus fostering healthy industry development. Therefore, cold chain technology is a critical success factor for fresh fruit exports.

The Ministry of Agriculture has promoted the project of “Agricultural Product Cold Chain Logistics and Quality Assurance Demonstration System”. Regarding exports, the focus is on establishing a full-process cold chain commercial model, centered on intelligent production at the front end, technology management, and the introduction of new cold chain technologies. This is combined with upgrading regional cold chain logistics centers and integrating agricultural enterprises’ capabilities, driving overall structural improvement and upgrading of the agricultural industry.　　

On the export front, the strategic agricultural alliances address industry needs by deploying cold chain infrastructure through the hub-and-spoke system at different stages. This ensures that fresh fruit quality is guaranteed throughout production to transportation, reduces losses during transit, and effectively enhances agricultural products’ competitiveness in international markets.

According to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement), member countries may impose varying levels of restrictions on types of plant pests and diseases. Exported fresh fruits must comply with quarantine and safety standards to ensure smooth sales in importing countries, while enhancing Taiwan’s agricultural products’ international image and credibility.

To overcome quarantine challenges in agricultural exports, agricultural authorities and research institutions have, through long-term professional expertise, technology, and resource investment, established systematic handling models. These integrate crop cultivation, insect pathology, pest and disease density monitoring, diagnosis and identification, pesticide usage, and post-harvest treatment to address issues caused by hidden pests and diseases in agricultural products.

Through the strategic agricultural alliances’ hub-and-spoke systems, satellite factories implement these systematic handling models from production through logistics and storage. This ensures recognition by importing countries during quarantine procedures, breaking through quarantine barriers.

Successful Cases of the Strategic Agricultural Alliance Program

For overseas markets with markedly different consumer habits, analyzing market preferences and current conditions before exporting fresh fruits helps understand the demand, accurately position products, analyze competitors, and assess market opportunities. This enables the formulation of effective marketing strategies to increase market share.

Take the Taiwan Pineapple Industry Alliance as an example. Its leading organization, the Taiwan Fruit and Vegetable Exporters Association, collaborated with the Taiwan Agricultural Technology Resource Logistics Management Society to interview domestic fruit trade and distributors to understand the current state of the Japanese consumer market. They also referenced public opinion reports from Japan and benchmarked against successful foreign fruit export cases to guide R&D and production-marketing strategies for pineapple exports to Japan.

The quality of domestic pineapples forms the foundation for sustainable export markets. The Taiwan Pineapple Strategic Alliance formed expert teams to provide guidance on export consolidation and packaging facilities, combined with strict quality management standards, focusing on key factors to improve export quality and promoting industry-driven management upgrades.

In the past, due to incentives like fast delivery and zero tariffs, pineapple and sugar apple exports heavily relied on the market of mainland China. This led to serious production and marketing imbalances when exports were blocked due to pest detections by China.

The Sugar Apple Strategic Alliance, besides cooperating with agricultural authorities to explore to other countries and strengthen domestic marketing and processing support, also promoted GGAP certification (Global G.A.P International Agricultural Product Certification) through its hub-and-spoke system. This ensures safe and sustainable agricultural production and acts as a passport for international trade. During this process, alliance members such as the Taimali District Farmers’ Association, Shigu Fruit and Vegetable Marketing Cooperative, and Sunshine Vocational Agricultural Production Cooperative continuously based their efforts on quality, actively developing new sales channels with traders to gain export competitiveness.

〔Operation Tips〕TGAP PLUS, GGAP to ASIAGAP as Passports for Export

In addition to ensuring a complete cold chain and post-harvest treatment to stabilize export quality of fresh fruits, obtaining GGAP certification based on the TGAP PLUS standard is also key to successfully entering export markets.

Furthermore, to expand the supply and sources of food for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and to control food safety and traceability, the Japanese government established the ASIAGAP international agricultural product certification standard. This aims to enhance the cross-border circulation of Asian agricultural products and prevent pesticide residue risks and trade barriers caused by differences in local agricultural regulations among countries. ASIAGAP, as an international agricultural certification, just like GLOBALGAP, may become another critical key to expanding the presence of Taiwanese agricultural products in Japanese markets and boosting their international reputation.

Conclusion

The Strategic Agricultural Alliance adheres to five core values: co-creating value, organizational collaboration, product responsibility, inclusiveness and trust, and profit sharing. Guided by the “three arrows” of agricultural advancement—diversified marketing, value-added processing, and export expansion—the alliance effectively integrates resources, enhances product value, and generates comprehensive benefits across the agricultural value chain.

Facing global agricultural challenges, Taiwan’s agricultural authorities are committed to promoting the action strategy of “Smart Resilience, Sustainable Assurance” to enhance the overall resilience and competitiveness of agriculture. In the future, as market demands evolve and technology advances, and as the agricultural strategic alliance continue to align with agricultural policies while maintaining flexibility and innovation, strengthening the agricultural ecosystem’s structure and operation, they will jointly upgrade and transform Taiwan’s agriculture, moving towards a more competitive and mutually beneficial future.