100 billion yogurt track, dairy company giants and new brands launched a tug -of -war war

Wen | Xiao Tian

In 1977, after a long period of investigation and inspection, Danone filmed a long -lived -themed advertising "Georgians Over 100" in the Georgian Mountains. In the film, the longevity old people were holding a round cup of yogurt in their hands, and the picture of the smile deeply shocked the Americans at the time.

This clever practice associated with longevity and longevity has allowed Dane to successfully open the US market in the 10 years later, and its dominance in the US dairy industry in one fell swoop. At the same time, it also allowed yogurt that has long been a European breakfast or snacks to truly enter the global performance stage.

Today, yogurt, like cheese and meat, is an important composition of Americans's daily diet. With product innovation, the United States is in a leading position in the global yogurt market.

Compared with the United States, it is used to cold food, yogurt consumption can be "universal throughout the year" and anytime, anywhere. China's strong demand for yogurt depends on the weather changes, especially in the hot summer, as large as the chain super, as small as the husband and wife's shop, stop in front of the freezer, the yogurt on the shelves is always more dazzling.

As far as the Chinese are concerned, yogurt decomposes most of the lactose during fermentation, thereby avoiding adverse reactions such as flatulence and diarrhea that occurs with liquid milk from those who are not tolerated by lactose. Compared to ordinary milk, yogurt is also stronger. Because of this, the yogurt industry is in a period of rapid growth.

According to the data of the Toubao Research Institute, the size of the Chinese yogurt market increased from 28.33 billion yuan in 2014 to 67.98 billion yuan in 2018, with an annual recurrent growth rate of 24.5%. It is expected that the market size will exceed 21 billion yuan by 2023.

However, the food and beverage industry has always been "inside", and the yogurt industry is even more. With the growth of new brands such as Lechun and Jane Ai, the yogurt track has become crowded. New and old brands are competing on the same stage. , So far, there are no crowns.

Low -temperature yogurt, the "new continent" of those who enter the game later

A yogurt battle in the freezer was quietly starting.

As a consumer, what can feel the most in this "war" is the brand that is "all flowers" in front of the supermarket shelves, not only the yogurt of traditional brands such as Mengniu, Yili, Sanyuan, and Guangming. It is full of new forces such as Jian Ai, Lechun, Kaishi, Beihai Ranch, and Wu Island.

Not only that, capital also favored the yogurt track. Aside the traditional dairy company Yili and Mengniu, which is "not bad", high -end yogurt brands such as Lechun, Jian Ai, and Wu Island have frequently received financing.

Taking the high -end yogurt brand Jian Ai, which is the main naked sugar, as an example, as soon as the year in 2021, Jian Ai received a total of 800 million yuan in Series B financing. One year. In March of this year, Jian Ai announced to the outside world that the C round of financing (unveiled amount) was enough to see the "love" of capital for it.

In recent years, with the continuous improvement of consumers' income level and health awareness, China's low -temperature dairy products, especially the yogurt market in recent years, have developed rapidly. In 2021, China's low -temperature yogurt market has been close to 70 billion yuan.

However, in the process of high -speed development, the low -temperature dairy market has shown the situation of "hundreds of flowers". Traditional dairy giants have not gained an overwhelming advantage as before.

The reason behind the investigation is that from the perspective of financial and economic, these brands can be deep in the shadow of the "Gemini Star". In fact, it is determined by the characteristics of low -temperature yogurt -the life cycle is short, and the cold chain is needed. This also made Yili and Mengniu disdain to intervene seriously, so they left some new brands and small companies to survive.

Looking back at the development of Chinese yogurt, since 1911 British businessmen set up milk companies in Shanghai to produce the first batch of yogurt in China, more than 100 years of storms, and the modern production of yogurt has also made rapid progress. However, China's cold chain transportation in the food industry is still one of the few relatively shortcomings. The cold chain has not been sinking enough, which has limited the size of the low -temperature yogurt market, and the balance of supply and demand in the early stage is difficult to master.

From the downstream of the yogurt industry, the distribution of low -temperature yogurt depends mainly on cold chain logistics. However, China's cold chain construction is still not perfect. China's per capita cold storage capacity is 0.14 cubic meters, which is still a large gap compared with the US 0.7 cubic meters. In terms of cold chain application rate, China is less than 20%, while Japan and Western Europe and so on. There are 85%of developed countries and regions, with obvious gaps.

For a long time, from packaging yogurt to bottle coagulation yogurt, from mixing yogurt to Belle bags and roof wraps, from large fruit grain probiotics to ... the domestic yogurt market has always been trapped in cold chain transportation. The transport radius of dairy companies determines the sales radius of low temperature yogurt.

This is also the fundamental reason why the Chinese white milk market has formed a "dairy company", but the yogurt market has never appeared in a mainstream enterprise.

Until 2009, Guangming launched Moslian's "normal temperature yogurt", which changed the category composition of the Chinese yogurt industry in one fell swoop, and became the innovative trajectory in the history of global yogurt development. Mengniu and Yili of the dairy "Gemini Star" dumped a lot.

However, Yili and Mengniu Mengniu quickly rushed up, and successively launched a similar formula and positioning pure Zhen Zhen and An Muji, and quickly recaptured the market with the unique channel advantages of the sky.

"Normal temperature" means that there is no need to cooperate with cold chain, low cost and strong penetration, and the channels of the three giants have deeply cultivated the advantages over the years. The head leopard data shows that in 2017, the top three companies in the yogurt industry include the markets of the three companies of Illi, Mengniu, and Guangming. The share CR3 reaches 59%. When this market has been divided by Mengniu, Yili and Guangming, other companies want to cut in hard to shake the big tree. In September 2017, domestic yogurt sales reached 122 billion yuan, an increase of 18%year -on -year, and for the first time exceeding pure milk. Under the support of capital, the emerging brands cultivated by some Internet thinking, with the marketing of unusual ways, accurately locate, cut into the most difficult "啃" low -temperature yogurt track in the eyes of the giants, trying to occupy a place.

We can also understand why no matter Jian Ai, Lechun, or new players such as Beihai Ranch, and Wam, and after financing, we will not make an appointment to create the upstream industrial chain to prevent being trapped by the underdeveloped cold chain system.

Is the yogurt growth "decline", is the high -end or fruit?

The Chinese yogurt market has not reached a saturated state, but this does not mean that the hustle and bustle of the track will bring the industry's prosperity.

The fact is that yogurt is encountering a bottleneck. Even during the epidemic that consumers pay more attention to nutritional needs, the growth rate of yogurt is constantly declining.

According to the "2022 Chinese Shopper Report in the 2022 Chinese Shopper Report" by Bain Company and Kaidian Consumer Index, compared with the rapid growth of milk and cheese, the sales of 2021-2020 yogurt decreased by 7.8% , List as low -speed growth categories.

The low -temperature yogurt tracks that have been occupied by new consumer brands are also not optimistic.

According to AC Nielsen data, the overall sales of the low -temperature yogurt market in 2020 fell 12.5%year -on -year; in a institution survey in May this year, the new hope dairy bluntly said: "In the industry, low temperature yogurt categories performed More weak. "

The reasons behind the search, financial and economic nobles believe that from the internal and external causes of the category of yogurt.

Internally, unlike American yogurt consumption habits, the Chinese have not developed the low -temperature yogurt that is not suitable for heating drinking. Compared with white milk with nutritional needs, choosing yogurt is more like choosing a delicious drink or casual food, but with the rise of sugar reduction and consumption upgrades, sugar -containing yogurt is not healthy, and the original yogurt is too sour, which also allows it to make it too sour, and it also allows it Consumers are confused when they choose yogurt.

From the outside, with the rise of new consumer brands that overthrow the "old consumption", "no addition", "low sugar", "0 sucrose", "clean formula" ... the keyword tags on these yogurt packaging, on the one hand, the industry has raised the industry The threshold allows consumers to gradually choose healthier yogurt subconsciously in consumer decision -making.

For example, "minimalist" is one of the "net celebrities" selling points of yogurt; the "truth" yogurt owned by Guangming Dairy is "naturally given by nature, pure and no addition" as a propaganda language. The ingredient table as a propaganda language: "Nicknamed milk, sugar, lactic acid bacteria, nothing else."

But from another perspective, these yogurt products have moved to homogeneity and internal volume. For consumers, the loyalty of the brand will decline.

On the other hand, the prices of "high -end yogurt" such as "rejecting chemical additives", "strong taste", and "high protein" are also more expensive than one.

Where is these yogurts expensive? Mainly, the marketing costs and channel costs are higher, which has pushed the price of the product. Take the high -end yogurt brand of Internet celebrities as an example. It not only invited celebrities to endorse their products, but also put various marketing advertisements on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, which pushed the cost invisibly.

In addition, some high -end yogurt brands do not have their own production bases. Many of them are foundry. A large part of this part of the "high price" of yogurt comes from emotional premium.

The meaning of the domestic yogurt market is still in the disorderly competition stage of "high price equal to high quality". High -end low -temperature yogurt is questioned that IQ tax is not groundless.

As we all know, the consumer group is a pyramid -shaped structure. The closer to the top of the pyramid, the stronger the consumption power of people. When the emerging yogurt brand is attached to the "high -end" battle, it is tied at the top of the pyramid. High -end consumers are not enough.

Whether it is high -end yogurt indirectly led to the decline in the growth rate of the track, or the cold atmosphere of the industry, the high -end layout of survival is to survive. On the whole, the high -end yogurt development of the high -end yogurt development in this stage has basically ended. Here are the stage of "bayonet".

Do the "plus method" or "subtraction", the long -termism behind the yogurt war

The founder of Yongzhang once said: "Whoever has the needs of taste, whoever has the future." Although this sentence makes sense, it is questionable.

Delicious and nutritious yogurt, because of its unique taste experience, has a group of loyal fans like coffee and cola. However, the taste of yogurt is not as huge as cola and coffee. How to form its own core competitiveness in addition to the taste is a problem faced by all yogurt companies.

In 2007, Chobani, known as the "Apple" company, was known as the yogurt, and killed the American yogurt market at the time of "Greek Yogurt" at the time. From 1%to 52%of the share, it has become the second largest yogurt brand in the United States. At that time, the market share of up to two -thirds of the US yogurt market belonged to two fresh milk products companies from France, Danone and Younuo. Chobani took a lot of market share from the giant's hands, creating the business myth of "curve overtaking". Behind it relied on the unique advantage of milk sources and repeatedly adjusted the concentrated process and formula of Greek yogurt.

In China, with the deepening of supply -side reforms, new brands and new products in the yogurt industry have exploded. The strong format has spawned the inner rolls, and the fierce competition of yogurt products is inevitable.

According to CBNData's "2020 New Health Consumption Trends Report", people's health changes in diet are on the one hand, such as "low sugar and low fat without adding", on the other hand Make add.

Chobani's success exactly provides two inspirations to Chinese yogurt companies: "doing subtraction" focusing on the competition of milk sources; "doing plus method" emphasizes the differences of bacteria.

From the perspective of the subtraction, if the yogurt company wants to live well, the product must be good first, and the source of the good product is good for milk.

Tracing back to the previous ordinary yogurt, which mainly uses glue such as gelatin to improve product viscosity, and now, under the trend of high -end industry driven by new consumption, fresh milk is as small as possible on the ingredients. Add ingredients with both health and functionality.

This puts forward extremely high requirements for high -quality raw milk resources. Therefore, in addition to re -annotation of the cold chain transportation, many yogurt companies also exhaust their thoughts on the source.

However, large dairy companies have strong strength and earlier enrollment. The dispute between milk sources is obviously more powerful for dairy giants. "China Commercial Daily" reported that "currently the large -scale ranch in China has almost all 'famous flowers."

In addition to the competition for milk sources, from the perspective of adding addition, good bacteria are another heavy battlefield of yogurt companies, and because of its importance, it is called "bacterial chip".

Taking probiotics as an example, the current status of the domestic probiotic industry is not better than the seeds and pig farming industries.

At present, international probiotics patents are basically monopolized by the United States, Japan, Russia and other countries, and domestic probiotic raw materials must also be imported from these countries. Tianfeng Securities Research Report shows that domestic probiotic raw materials in 2020 are mainly derived from the US company DuPont and Danish Corporation Corhansen. The raw materials provided by the two companies accounted for 85%of the overall domestic market.

Mengniu Guanyi milk is used in the BB-12 probiotics of CHR. Hansen, Danish, and LGG in Jane Ai LGG probiotic nude yogurt also originated from Kohansen.

On the other hand, after Japan welcomed the trend of healthy and aging, it entered the functional era. It has continuously increased research and development in the application of bacteria and ingredients, and many star products have been born.

Meiji has more than 5,000 lactic acid bacteria, and the "Meiji Bai Le Youyou" series launched in 2020, including "R-1" and "LG21" two yogurt products. "R-1 lactic acid bacteria)" and "Ghel Lactobacilla OLL2716 strain (LG21 lactic acid bacteria)", after launch, was in the market fire.

Fortunately, in recent years, companies such as Mengniu, Yili, and Xinxin have begun to develop and cultivate their patent probiotics and are applied to their own products. In 2020, Yili developed a probiotic Bl-99 with a probiotic with independent intellectual property rights.

On the one hand, the nutritional and functionalization of yogurt products, on the other hand, the streamlined and purity of the yogurt formula, the "twins" of the dairy industry will also dominate the yogurt track. However, if many new brands can do a good job of differentiated positioning, they are sufficiently focused and focused, and they still have the possibility of becoming Chobani.

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