THEY won’t be lining up round the block to get their hands on them, but there’ll no doubt be some buyers keen to snap up China’s new apple futures contracts.

The Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange listed Fuji apple futures Friday, adding to contracts it already offers including wheat and white sugar, meaning investors could pretty much hedge all the key ingredients of an apple pie. They started trading at 7,800 yuan (US$1,184) a metric ton.

The apple contracts, the world’s first fresh fruit futures contract, are for delivery in May, July, October, November and December and trading runs from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. local time. Fruit will be 80 millimeters or more in diameter, with a 2,000 yuan per ton discount for apples between 75 millimeters and 79 millimeters.

Apples are the most popular fruit in China and the country is the world’s biggest producer, having an output of 43.88 million tons and accounting for 57 percent of global supply in 2016, Xinhua said Friday. China has fresh apple storage capacity of 10 million tons, or about 25 percent of production, according to the Zhengzhou exchange.

Apple cultivation is key to China’s poverty alleviation campaign, as many of China’s poor areas rely on apples as a major income source. Among the 122 key apple-growing cities and counties listed by the Ministry of Agriculture, 33 are designated as national-level impoverished counties, Xinhua said.

Domestic exchanges this year started options for soybean meal and white sugar and authorities have said they are studying futures including ginger, hogs and potatoes. (SD-Agencies)