Text/Yu Yuan
For publicizing that "probiotics play an important role in the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia virus", Yakult affiliate Shanghai Yakult Dairy Co., Ltd. was recently fined 450,000 yuan by the Shanghai Pudong New Area Municipal Supervision Bureau.
In this regard, Yakult officially responded that the company lacked strict audits in product promotion and there were serious loopholes in management, and apologized deeply and sincerely.
Since its founding in 1935, Yakult has entered 38 countries and regions around the world. After entering China in 2002, relying on the classic "Little Red Bottle" design and the brand concept of "healthy nutrition", it has continuously seized market share.
In recent years, however, Yakult has become less popular. The data shows that Yakult's daily sales in fiscal 2021 in Chinese mainland fell by 600,000 bottles year-on-year.
In fact, it's not just Yakult, the entire lactic acid bacteria beverage market has been controversial in recent years for increasingly mature consumers.
What happened to Yakult? What happened to lactic acid bacteria drinks?
Illegal publicity
Recently, the information published on the credit China website shows that Shanghai Yakult Dairy Co., Ltd., an affiliate of Yakult, has added an administrative penalty.
The penalty information shows that before the end of the new crown virus pneumonia epidemic in China, the company publicized that "probiotics play an important role in the prevention and treatment of the new crown virus", and cited the "Diagnosis and Treatment Plan for Pneumonia Infected by the New Coronavirus" as the basis, which is very easy to increase the attention and trust of consumers in its Yakult lactic acid bacteria products, mistakenly believing that probiotics have a preventive and therapeutic effect on the new crown virus;
In addition, the company advertises that "beneficial bacteria in the intestine will be lost with the normal excretion of the human body, so it is necessary to supplement active probiotics every day to maintain the balance of the intestinal flora", which will make people mistakenly think that not taking probiotics every day will have an adverse effect on the body; publicizing that "a small bottle of Yakult 100 ml contains more than 10 billion Lactobacillus casei plants, and a bottle of probiotics that can meet the needs of adults for a day" will make people mistakenly think that drinking a bottle of Yakult lactic acid bacteria every day will meet the needs of the human body. Neglect to supplement other varieties of probiotics other than Lactobacillus casei.
According to the penalty documents, the above-mentioned publicity behavior of the parties is conducive to increasing the sales of Yakult lactic acid bacteria, gaining a competitive advantage, and eliminating or hindering the competition of other varieties of probiotic drinks. The Shanghai Pudong New Area Market Supervision and Administration Bureau fined him 450,000 yuan in accordance with the first paragraph of Article 20 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China.
Kong Lei, a lawyer at Beijing T&O Law Firm, said that Yakult is a beverage, not a drug, so the promotion must not involve the function of disease treatment, which violates article 17 of the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China: except for advertisements for medical treatment, drugs and medical devices, it is forbidden to advertise any other advertisements that involve disease treatment functions, and medical terms or terms that are easy to confuse the goods being marketed with drugs and medical devices are prohibited.
In addition, Yakult also violated Article 8 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China, which stipulates that business operators shall not make false or misleading commercial publicity about the performance, function, quality, sales status, user evaluation, and honors of their goods, so as to deceive or mislead consumers.
On the evening of September 7, Yakult's official Weibo issued an apology statement, and said that it had conducted a comprehensive review of the review process of its subsidiaries and internal promotional content, and organized relevant departments to strengthen the study of laws and regulations.
Sales declined
According to the data, lactic acid bacteria beverages are products made of fresh milk or dairy products as raw materials through the cultivation and fermentation of lactic acid bacteria, and then add water, sugar and other concocted products.
Yakult was born in Japan in 1935 and entered the Chinese market in 2002. With the classic "Little Red Bottle" design and the brand concept of "Healthy Nutrition", Yakult has achieved good results. According to the data, Yakult sold about 59,000 bottles a day in China in 2002, and rose to 5.825 million bottles in 2016, with a compound sales growth rate of 39% in 14 years.
However, in recent years, the development of Yakult has entered a bottleneck period. According to the financial report released by Yakult Co., Ltd., its growth rate fell from more than 6% in fiscal 2018 to about 1.35% in fiscal 2019, and sales declined in fiscal 2020. In fiscal 2020, Yakult Chinese mainland market sales were 7.609 million bottles per day, and by fiscal year 2021 it has further declined to 7.012 million bottles per day.
According to Kantar Consumer Index data, from August last year to August this year, Yakult's sales in the Chinese market fell by 16.2%, penetration by 3.4%, and average prices by 0.7%.
Dairy analyst Song Liang said that objectively speaking, the impact of peers is an important reason for the decline in Yakult's sales.
As consumers pay more and more attention to the functionality and health of food and beverages, lactic acid bacteria drinks that advertise "digestive aids" and "moisturizing intestines" are becoming more and more popular among consumers.
According to Euromonitor International data, from 2015 to 2019, the compound growth rate of China's lactic acid bacteria beverage market was 11.2%. In 2019 Chinese mainland the market size of the lactic acid bacteria industry reached 36.48 billion yuan, and is expected to reach 49.24 billion yuan in 2024.
In the face of such a huge piece of cake, many beverage companies have come to share the spoon and launch their own lactic acid bacteria beverage brands, so the competitive pressure faced by Yakult is also increasing.
China News Weekly visited supermarkets and found that at present, the ambient lactic acid bacteria beverages include Yili Changyi, Wahaha lactic acid bacteria drinks, Wandashan lactic acid bacteria drinks, small samples of small lactic acid, Mengniu GO Chang, JuneYao Wei Power, Junle Bao Junchang, etc.; low-temperature lactic acid bacteria drinks include Mengniu Youyi C, Yili Per Yitian, Junlebao Daily Live Bacteria, Yakult Multi-Live Bacteria Lactic Acid Bacteria Drinks, etc.
On the other hand, compared with other brands, Yakult products are relatively single and lack innovation.
At present, as post-90s consumers gradually become the mainstream of beverage consumption, in addition to their attention to product function appeals, more personalized needs have also become a highlight that attracts them.
Therefore, major lactic acid bacteria beverage brands have also made efforts in scene consumption. For example, Yili's Changyi 100% launched a 1.25L large bottle for gatherings, dinners and other consumption scenarios focused on young people; Mengniu Youyi C launched lactic acid bacteria sparkling water; Junlebao's newly launched "Fruit Fiber Junchang" adds fruit grains, 0 fat, can be stored at room temperature, diversified scene drinking.
Yakult has only had a 100ml low temperature product for many years, and only launched a low-sugar version in 2016 to adapt to consumers' demands for low-sugar health. According to Yakult, the current sales share of low-sugar products in 2020 has reached 27%.
At present, in the lactic acid bacteria beverage market, room temperature lactic acid bacteria beverages are not limited by cold chain transportation, easy to transport and storage, and the development speed is significantly higher than that of low-temperature lactic acid bacteria beverages. According to Euromonitor International data, from 2015 to 2019, the compound growth rate of domestic low-temperature lactic acid bacteria was 7.6%, while the compound growth rate of room temperature lactic acid bacteria was 17.8%.
For why it has been adhering to the low temperature line, Yakult told China News Weekly that room temperature products generally do not contain live bacteria, and Yakult belongs to the live lactic acid bacteria milk drink, in order to ensure the activity and number of bacteria, taste and freshness of the product, must be refrigerated at low temperature.
"At this stage, Yakult is still focusing on the further promotion of the existing two products in the Chinese mainland, but in the future, it will consider whether to introduce new products according to the actual situation according to the market situation and the needs of consumers."
Standard aging
But it's worth noting that as the market continues to grow, consumers are maturing, and they are moving from simply focusing on the number of probiotics to focusing on whether they have real value.
Liu Shaowei, professor at the School of Biological Engineering of East China University of Science and Technology and deputy director of the Food and Drug Regulatory Research Center, said that in general, probiotics can maintain the ecological balance of the intestinal flora and play a beneficial role in the host. However, whether lactic acid bacteria drinks can effectively play the role of probiotics mainly depends on the activity of the bacteria used, and if there is no cold chain guarantee, the effect of these probiotics will be reduced.
From the beverage outsourcing assembly material list, it can be found that the number of lactic acid bacteria claimed by each brand is different, some are marked with "greater than or equal to 10 billion", some are marked as "18×107CFU/ml at the factory", and there are many brands that promote the number of lactic acid bacteria up to 30 billion. However, consumers have no way of knowing how many of these live bacteria can be detected before the supermarket sales link or before the shelf life is critical.
The second is through the digestive system, whether these strains can reach the intestine alive, whether they can really play a role in the human body also needs to be marked with a question mark.
In Liu Shaowei's view, although there are many products in the introduction will indicate the addition of tens of billions of active probiotics, a variety of lactic acid bacteria fermentation and other information, but the key to the problem is the number of beneficial bacteria that arrive at the human body alive, and the company blindly emphasizes the number of live bacteria added and the types of live bacteria when promoting products. "Consumers can't trust some probiotic products that claim to have some or more of their functionality."
In this regard, Yakult said that the viability of active lactic acid bacteria (Lactobacillus casei Shirota strain) used by its own brand has been scientifically experimented in Japan, the United Kingdom, Thailand, China and other countries, and the relevant research results have been published.
Song Liang pointed out that the chaos of lactic acid bacteria beverages is not endless, the fundamental reason is the lack of standards, making the industry threshold low, which has led to a large number of lactic acid bacteria drinks flooding the market.
China News Weekly noted that the current implementation standards for the production of lactic acid bacteria beverages in China are basically the "National Food Safety Standards - Milk-containing Beverages" (GB/T 21732) issued in 2008, in which only the number of live bacteria at the factory is required to reach ≥1×106CFU/ml, and the sales period is carried out according to the number of live bacteria of lactic acid bacteria marked on the product label. The standard has not been updated for more than a decade.
Song Liang said that if new subdivision product standards are not introduced as soon as possible, it is not conducive to the formation of healthy competition in the industry, nor is it conducive to consumers making better choices.