After years of layout by leading companies, the sugar-free beverage market segment has accumulated a large amount of technology, and finally stood on the forefront. In recent years, under the impetus of capital, sugar-free products have gradually occupied the appetite of consumers with high marketing methods.
Faced with a dazzling array of sugar-free products on the market, it is also a difficult problem for consumers to choose. Enterprises are also thinking about whether their products are passers-by or eternal on the sugar-free track? Under the sugar-free trend, which products will usher in development opportunities?
Sugar-free consumption in the market
Statistics show that the effective sales cycle and life cycle of general FMCG products used to be more than 5 years (including online). In the past two years, the consumption and life cycle of some FMCG products is only 18 months.
In terms of SKU (stock keeping unit), there are currently more than 5,000 beverages in the Chinese market, but less than 100 brands have survived for more than five years. Taking packaged water as an example, a total of 330 new SKUs were generated in 2019, and the survival rate by December 2020 was only 50%.
In the tea beverage market, Uni-President Tea Liwang was listed in 2002 and withdrew from the market in 2011; Coca-Cola original leaf tea was listed in 2010 and withdrew from the market in 2017; Tenwow sugar-free tea was listed in 2011 and gradually faded out of the market; Master Kong Benwei Tea House 2012 It was listed in 2013 and has now disappeared; Uniform Tea was launched in 2013, and then gradually faded out of the market...
In fact, with the strengthening of public health awareness, the "sugar-free wind" has rapidly emerged in recent years, whether it is the hotly-hyped "sugar-free concept stocks" in the capital market or the more and more sugar-free beverages displayed on supermarket shelves. .
"0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories" products have become a new choice for more and more consumers, and some companies are also vigorously promoting "0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories" to attract consumers. According to the reporter of "Securities Daily", ten years ago, Oriental Leaf took the lead in proposing and realizing the product's "0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories, 0 essence, 0 preservatives", which can be said to be the pioneer and the pioneer of sugar-free beverages in China. pioneer.
Throughout the development of China's sugar-free tea industry, it has long shown a slow growth curve.
Before 2016, the growth rate of the domestic sugar-free tea market was still in the single digits. But by 2020, the market size of China's sugar-free beverage industry has reached 11.78 billion yuan. Among them, the compound annual growth rate from 2014 to 2019 exceeded 40%. From 2014 to 2019, the compound annual growth rate of sugar-free tea reached 32.6%, and it is expected to maintain a compound growth rate of 22.9% until 2024. It is estimated that the proportion of sugar-free tea will reach 12.3% in 2024, corresponding to a market size of 11.5 billion yuan. Among them, Oriental Leaf is the leader in the development of sugar-free tea in China, contributing most of the increment. Especially in 2021, according to Nielsen data, the sales of Oriental Leaf will almost double.
"Five years ago, almost all people who drank oriental leaves were people with a little experience, but in the past two years, they have joined many young groups, because young people are more and more identified with the traditional Chinese culture of tea." oriental leaves Brand manager Wu Ping explained the reason for the explosion of the product this summer, "On Xiaohongshu, the number of spontaneously added notes about oriental leaves this year has exceeded 5 times the sum of the previous five years."
At station B, the traditional oriental beauty video inspired by the crane design on the packaging of oriental leaves and green mandarin pu-erh is causing a heated discussion among the "Generation Z".
Wu Ping said that Dongfang Yee wanted to convey the Chinese aesthetic culture behind a cup of tea to young people. At the same time, Dongfang Yee's ingenuity of revitalizing traditional Chinese tea with global advanced tea-making technology also made Chinese tea truly "from the East, out of the East". East", let "Oriental" become synonymous with quality.
Zhu Danpeng, a researcher at China Brand Research Institute, said in an interview with a reporter from Securities Daily that Oriental Leaf belongs to a forward-looking layout category, and its rise is based on the superposition of dividends such as Chinese people's health awareness, weight management, and appearance management.
Using time for space, Oriental Leaf adheres to the oriental philosophy of "slow is fast" and inherits the tradition of Chinese tea as its original intention, and is making more young consumers "fall in love with tea".
Oriental leaves that do not chase the wind
Through subversive innovation and gradual upgrade, "trial and error" is controlled before the product is launched, and it is guaranteed that what is delivered to consumers is an "art" rather than an "unfinished product". However, in the past ten years, the sales of Oriental Leaf have not shrunk, but have ushered in explosive growth.
"Behind this year's explosive growth is the 'long-termism' that Oriental Leaf has adhered to for ten years. At the same time, it is also inseparable from Nongfu Spring's adherence to the 'natural, healthy' brand concept." FMCG expert Xiao Zhuqing told "Securities Daily" The reporter said that only products that are truly polished can come to the end and be remembered by time.
Back to May 2011, the Oriental Leaf with the mission of "Chinese tea" came out.
According to Wu Ping, the name "Oriental Leaf" was taken from Zhou Ning's "Plants and Trees in the World", and the word "tea" is the grass, the wood and the people in the middle. This nomenclature accurately reflects the research and development philosophy of Oriental Leaf: "simple, clean, and pure", which is reflected in the physical properties, which are 0 sugar, 0 calories, 0 fat, 0 essence, and 0 preservatives.
The layman watches the fun, the layman watches the doorway. For beverages, it is not difficult to achieve 0 sugar, 0 calories, and 0 fat, and 0 preservatives for acidic beverages is not a high threshold. The real difficulty is how to achieve 0 preservatives in neutral and alkaline tea beverages, and How to make tea beverages have a natural tea fragrance without adding any flavor, and how to ensure that the tea soup does not oxidize and discolor during the shelf life. The latter three can be said to be the technical ceiling in the beverage industry.
In order to achieve these product standards, Nongfu Spring began to study aseptic production technology ten years ago, and laid out the first log6 aseptic production line in China. The so-called aseptic log6, in simple terms, means that one million bottles of beverages will not be contaminated by microorganisms, so that no preservatives are added at all to ensure the purity of the tea flavor.
Today, Nongfu Spring has dozens of such aseptic production lines. In addition to the unique neutral beverage aseptic technology, Oriental Leaf also solves the big problem of easy oxidation and discoloration of tea soup.
If you observe carefully, you will find that most of the tea beverages on the market are all-inclusive labels, because this can block the discolored tea soup to a certain extent. Only Oriental Leaf uses transparent packaging on both sides, because it does not oxidize and discolor, and the contents are generously displayed in front of consumers.
The R&D personnel of Oriental Leaf make products in an almost clumsy way - no expense, no expense in time, and the opposite is true. The advanced log6 aseptic technology and the unique tea soup oxygen control technology have made "Oriental Leaf" stand on the commanding heights of the industry since its birth, and it is still difficult to have imitators even today.
Entering the tea industry with the mission of making Chinese tea well, Oriental Leaf has spent ten years lurking and persevering. "East Leaf does not believe in and has never pursued the so-called trend. Behind the sugar-free wave and the success of Oriental Leaf is the confidence in traditional tea culture. Tea should not have sugar, essence, or preservatives. , we have believed in it for ten years, and realized it with our unique technology, that's all." Wu Ping told the "Securities Daily" reporter.
Perhaps, this is the password that Oriental Leaf can finally succeed.
