Ningxia's wolfberry processor Ruibi has provided 1,000 to 2,000 tons of wolfberry juice for beverage conglomerate PepsiCo annually since the two began doing business in 2008.

Ruibi is the first and the only Chinese wolfberry juice supplier for Pepsi, which blends the fresh wolfberry juice into its high-end fruit juice beverages.

Wolfberry was dubbed as the holy fruit from the Himalayas by Europeans and Americans. Wolfberry drinks are healthy with promising market prospects, Ruibi general manager Lei Shuanyin said.

Pepsi picked Ruibi as its supplier not only because Ningxia is the primary cultivation region for the berry but also due to the incomparable quality of the wolfberries grown there, Lei said.

He said it was really tough for the company to meet the safety and quality standards required by Pepsi.

Most local wolfberry processors are involved in sales of dry wolfberry and seldom deal with the extraction and preservation of fresh wolfberry juice.

Ruibi has ten years' experience in wolfberry export, which, together with its product traceability system and medicine development background, guarantees the quality and security of its products.

The sales price of its fresh wolfberry juice for Pepsi stands at 80 yuan ($12) per kilogram, nearly twice as high as the domestic price of the product, Lei said.

He said Ruibi plans to raise the export volume of fresh wolfberry juice to 5,000 tons by expanding its capacity in the future.