Author: Times Finance Wu Peixuan XingwenWen
The herbal tea industry, which has been dormant for a long time, has recently become lively again.
On the one hand, JDB issued an announcement on June 24 saying that the Supreme People's Court rejected the retrial application of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group on the series of slogans "drink xxx if you are afraid of fire", which means that JDB can continue to use the slogan. I don't know how long Jiaduobao and Wang Laoji, an industry giant that has been tearing each other apart for ten years, can stop.
On the other hand, police in Guangzhou's Panyu District recently investigated and punished 11 herbal tea shops that illegally added Western medicine ingredients, most of which are private workshops. Offline herbal tea shops, which have always been under the banner of "tradition", have exposed a chaotic side.
Lingnan herbal tea, which has a long history, is it cool or not under the double blow of both efficacy and taste, and the new tea shop grabbing food?
Traditional herbal tea shop. Image source: Figureworm Creative
<h5>Private workshops were collectively "severely beaten."</h5>
"You stick your tongue out for me to see?"
After a hasty glance at the tongue of the Times financial reporter, the herbal tea shop owner lady skillfully said: "Your humidity is too heavy, you have to drink dehumidification, I suggest you drink it for two days, otherwise it is useless." ”
In the Lingnan region, no one can escape the attack of the so-called "moisture". The person who says this the most, in addition to Chinese medicine, is probably the person who sells herbal tea.
The climate in the Lingnan region is hot and humid, and according to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, the locals have "moisture" in their bodies. According to various medical texts and years of experience in treating diseases, local doctors gradually summarized some commonly used Chinese medicine formulas, and the soup medicine made with these formulas is called "herbal tea".
Therefore, herbal tea is neither cold nor tea, it is actually a kind of Traditional Chinese medicine.
According to industry public data statistics, the market size of China's herbal tea industry in 2018 was about 47 billion yuan. Food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said in an interview with Times Finance a few days ago that the development of the herbal tea market has slowed down in recent years, and the current market size is still maintained at about 40 billion yuan.
Nowadays, the more common herbal teas on the market are functional drinks such as Wang Laoji and Jiaduobao, which occupy half of the herbal tea market, and the other half belong to the herbal tea shops in the streets and alleys of the Lingnan area.
On May 28, 2006, Guangdong herbal tea was successfully included in the country's first batch of "intangible cultural protection heritage" list, and since then, the sales of canned herbal tea drinks have once surpassed Coca-Cola.
For Lingnan locals, compared to canned herbal tea drinks, they believe that the authentic herbal tea sold in the street herbal tea shops is the authentic herbal tea - after all, compared with these herbal teas with a chinese herbal flavor, Wang Laoji is more like sugar water.
However, traditional herbal tea shops have repeatedly broken out scandals about the addition of Western medicine.
Recently, the police in Guangzhou's Panyu District investigated and punished 11 private workshop-style herbal tea shops in Zhongcun Town, including Chengcheng Herbal Tea Shop, Lilai Herbal Tea Shop, and Guanghetang Herbal Tea Shop, which illegally added Western medicine.
Beverage industry expert Chen Wei revealed to Times Finance on July 2 that private herbal tea shops have been adding some Western medicines for a long time, "This is considered to be the unspoken rule of the industry, because the effect is indeed better after adding anti-inflammatory drugs, and it is really necessary to talk about the treatment of diseases, and the efficacy of herbal tea is definitely not as good as Western medicine." ”
On July 7, when Times Finance visited an herbal tea shop called Baifutang in Shatou New Village, Panyu District, Guangzhou, the clerk took the initiative to claim that its herbal tea did not contain Western medicine ingredients. "Our brand has been boiled in the store for more than ten years, and if the herbal tea can't be sold out in five or six hours, it will be poured out."
The clerk said that the Panyu District Food and Drug Administration was very strict, about once a quarter, and the herbal tea shops that are now open are compliant.
Times Finance noted that on the yellowed wall of this herbal tea shop, there was a "Letter of Commitment to Abide by the Law of the Herbal Tea Business Unit in Panyu District". There is also a banner hanging on the wall - "This herbal tea uses pure Chinese herbs _ torment". The clerk said that the word "medicine" was cut out during the inspection of the Food and Drug Administration, "They (the Food and Drug Administration) said that they could not write the word 'medicine'." ”
Slogans posted in the Abbacus Shop in Momofukudo. Image source: Times Finance photo
The clerk told Times Finance that the business was better after the epidemic situation improved, but due to the recent "Western medicine incident", the business has declined.
The youngest herbal tea shop that Times Finance has seen in Shatou is called "Materia Medica", which has only been open for three months. The clerk said that the business in the store was not bad. "People selling vegetables in the market come to me for a cup of herbal tea before they start work. Wait until after work or on weekends to help more young people. There is a female guest who comes to buy five-flower tea every day, and after buying a cup, she will pack a cup and take it away. There is also a boy who also comes to drink hot laxative fire tea every day. ”
The price of herbal tea in Materia Medica ranges from 3 to 11 pieces, and in addition to herbal tea, there are also foods such as bowl paste, turtle paste, mung bean paste, etc., and takeaway service is provided.
"Our medicines are not punches, they are all self-pot, and we will not put Western medicines, and we are not afraid of people to check." I went to the store at six o'clock in the morning and started boiling, you see, the medicine residue is still there. The clerk of the Materia Medica pointed to a plastic bucket at the door, which was filled with medicine residue.
Although herbal tea shops are promoting efficacy and quality, no one dares to really pack tickets for the actual efficacy.
Liao Yuan (pseudonym), who is engaged in traditional Chinese medicine in Guangzhou, told Times Finance on July 2: "Herbal tea as a traditional Chinese medicine, it has a certain effect, but it varies from person to person, it is recommended to drink under the guidance of professionals." After all, due to changes in eating habits and living environment, people's physique is different from before. Although the Lingnan area is humid and hot, regular drinking is likely to lead to physical imbalance. ”
<h5>The pomp and circumstance is no more</h5>
"We are a regular herbal tea brand and would never do such a thing!"
On the evening of July 1, when talking about the Western medicine addition incident, The owner of Foshan Cai Ruiman Chuangchun Garden (hereinafter referred to as "Chuangchun Garden") in Panyu Shiqiao Branch told Times Finance.
Qi Jie said that as a chain of herbal tea shop brands, ChuangChunYuan has a unified formula, and the manufacturer will match the Chinese herbs required for each dose of herbal tea, pack it and send it to the store, and the clerk will cook it in the store.
Sister Qi told Times Finance, "Most of the herbal teas in the store need to be booked in advance by guests, but for herbal teas such as 'damp tea' and 'detoxification tea', which are bought by many people, I will prepare one or two more doses for guests who have needs but have not booked." In addition, Qi Jie said that she needs to "regularly go to Foshan to train basic Chinese medicine knowledge" so that guests can "prescribe the right medicine" when buying herbal tea.
Times Finance noted that the price of herbal tea in Chuangchun Garden is not cheap, ranging from 16 yuan to 93 yuan, the most expensive of which is the "jade bamboo Buddha's hand" for the maintenance of women's ovaries, and the one-month course of treatment requires 2080 yuan.
Sister Qi is very optimistic about the prospects of her herbal tea business, she believes that "many people have some minor illnesses and pains, do not want to go to the hospital, preferring to choose to drink a cup of herbal tea." ”
Times Finance found in the interview that many herbal tea chains are full of confidence in the industry they are engaged in like Sister Qi.
Li En Herbal Tea, which has been stationed in Guangzhou's most prosperous Tianhe business district for several years, has not been forced to retreat by the succession of internet red tea shops that have sprung up nearby. The lady owner of Li En Herbal Tea feels that her own herbal tea is irreplaceable. "The people who come to me are young people, who don't buy Coke every day at noon when the day is hottest, but come over and drink a cup of herbal tea."
Young people in front of The Herbal Tea Gate came and went. The hostess believes that her herbal tea will retain these trendy customers.
According to her, the herbal tea in the store is imported from the brand side, there is a unified formula, and the purchase can be simply heated in the store.
Le en herbal tea store. Image source: Times Finance photo
The era of boiling herbal tea on the street is slowly passing.
Xu Qixiu herbal tea, which is also a chain franchise store, said in an interview with Times Finance on the 2nd that Xu Qixiu also provided a formula for the store to boil itself, but because of the large difference in personal habits in the boiling process, the quality of herbal tea was different, and later it was uniformly processed in the factory, made into solid granular beverages and brewed tea, so that the store could be sold after a simple operation after purchase.
The person in charge is also full of confidence in the herbal tea market. He believes that in the post-epidemic era, people's recognition of traditional Chinese medicine is getting higher and higher, and everyone's emphasis on health will make the herbal tea market re-active, "Nowadays, domestic products are just red, and herbal tea, as a traditional culture in China, will definitely be able to get better development." ”
When talking about whether herbal tea shops should be transformed, the person in charge asked rhetorically, "This market is so good, why should it be transformed?" ”
Compared with those private small workshops that were investigated and punished in Panyu this time, the chain herbal tea shops have brands and manufacturers behind them to do support, the quality has a certain guarantee, and more customers can be obtained.
Their development seems to be smooth, but at the same time they face difficulties.
During this visit, Times Finance saw that the flow of customers in herbal tea shops was far from the long queues of Internet red milk tea shops.
Food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said in an interview with Times Finance on July 6 that the overall development of offline herbal tea stores has shown a downward trend in recent years, for two reasons, "One is the development of offline stores of major brands, the same products, taste and efficacy are almost the same, product differentiation advantages are not obvious; second, large cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen and some second-tier cities in Lingnan area, commercial rents are higher, resulting in the living space of independent stores being squeezed." ”
According to times financial surveys, chain herbal tea shops Huang Zhenlong and Xu Qixiu both claim to have thousands of branches in the Lingnan area, but these herbal tea shops are often distributed in the streets and alleys near the commercial district, and have never set foot in large shopping malls with high rents.
In the impression of consumers, the number of herbal tea stores has also decreased sharply in recent years.
Qianyun (pseudonym), who works in the office building on Tiyu West Road, still has a fiery impression of herbal tea shops before 2010, and shops such as Huang Zhenlong, Xu Qixiu, and Deng Lao's herbal tea have blossomed everywhere.
Qianyun, who was still in junior high school at the time, drank at least two or three cups of Huang Zhenlong's "Herbal Tea" every week. In an interview with Times Finance on July 2, she was buying sugarcane juice at Huang Zhenlong's Guangzhou Tiyu West Road store.
"Buying herbal tea at that time was like buying milk tea now, which was a trend. Sometimes I don't want to drink herbal tea, and I also go to the herbal tea shop to buy a cup of sugarcane juice or coconut water. But now these chains of herbal tea shops are rarely seen. Qianyun said.
High rents, homogeneous products, a dwindling number of stores, and even more worrying are the difficulties for herbal tea shops to get out of Lingnan.
<h5>Survive in the cracks</h5>
In tianhe district during the rush hour, pedestrians are in a hurry, and the Deng Lao herbal tea shop opened on the street side does not attract young office workers.
During the visit of Times Finance, the clerk warmly came to ask what was uncomfortable. After two sentences of "consultation", the clerk came to the conclusion of "on fire" and recommended that the reporter drink liver tea. On the menu, in addition to a variety of traditional herbal teas, there are also some popular "sweet teas". According to the clerk, "This is a new product developed in the past one or two years." ”
Deng Lao Herbal Tea, famous for its founder Deng Tietao's use of traditional Chinese medicine to deal with the SARS epidemic in 2003, not only laid out the canned beverage market early, but also vigorously developed offline herbal tea shops. According to the official website of Deng Lao Herbal Tea, as early as 2006, its chain stores have exceeded 400 and began to march to the north.
However, 14 years later, Times Finance searched the Beijing area on the public comments, and only one search result appeared - Deng Lao Herbal Tea (Hopson Hui Store).
According to the official public account of Hopson Hui Store, this is the first store opened by Deng Lao Herbal Tea in Beijing, and it only opened at the end of August 2019. The beijing first store is decorated in a style similar to that of young people's favorite Internet celebrities: champagne gold with natural green as the main color, Traditional Chinese medicine herbs as the soft decoration design, and a casual dining area for customers to "punch in".
In addition, Deng Lao herbal tea has changed the tradition of herbal tea and mainly focuses on the concept of "health tea drink". In the selected reviews of public reviews, lemongrass peach, brown sugar handmade taro balls, and black sesame rice milk were selected as recommended menus by customers.
It is reported that Deng Lao Herbal Tea found a creative team to upgrade the brand VI again.
Deng Lao herbal tea new drink. Image source: Deng Lao Herbal Tea Beijing Hopson Hui WeChat public account
According to the Economic Daily, in the past 10 years, in the Guangdong market alone, there are no less than 60 herbal tea brands, of which Wang Laoji and Jiaduobao two major brands in the canned herbal tea market, the total share of the two as high as 95%. Other canned herbal tea brands such as Huang Zhenlong and Heqizheng can only share the remaining 5% of the "scraps".
In 2019, and its parent company, Dali Food Group (3799. HK) revenue increased by 2.5% year-on-year to RMB21,375 million. However, regarding herbal tea, Dali Foods' annual report only said that "the overall growth of the herbal tea market in 2019 is weak, and the herbal tea business still maintains market share in the face of challenges", and does not mention specific sales and market share.
On July 2, Times Finance dialed the landline phone number on its official website, but the other party said that it was "wrong". And its national hotline has also failed to open.
There are also many brands eager to enter the herbal tea beverage market for a piece of the pie, and the results are also tragic.
Xiangxue Pharmaceutical (300147. SZ) launched Shangqing Drink in 2007, claiming to become the second largest brand of herbal tea, but the performance was not satisfactory, and in 2011 it fell into the cloud of suspension of production.
In 2015, Renfu Pharmaceutical (600079. SH) launched Qingmu Sanhua Herbal Tea and plans to reach sales of 1 billion yuan in three years. However, in its interaction with investors in 2018, Renfu Pharmaceutical said that "the herbal tea business is not a key project for the company, and the business has been divested." ”
In 2016, the century-old Tongrentang also tried to launch a yellow pot of herbal tea, which gradually disappeared.
In functional tea beverages, most herbal tea companies have survived in the cracks.
<h5>Awkward giants</h5>
Wang Laoji and Jiaduobao, who are at the top of the herbal tea industry pyramid, may be more representative of the prospects of the herbal tea industry. But the two "big guys" have been busy tearing each other apart for a decade.
Until June this year, the Supreme People's Court rejected the retrial application of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group on the series of slogans "Drink xxx if you are afraid of fire", and the dispute between Jiaduobao and Wang Laoji came to a temporary end.
In the past decade, the two hegemons of jiaduobao and Wang Laoji, which have been rich in capital, have made a highlight of China's herbal tea market.
According to data from the Prospective Industry Research Institute, 2012 was the fastest expansion of the herbal tea market, with a growth rate of 16.7%, but it began to decline since then, falling to single digits in 2015, with a growth rate of only 9.7%.
In addition, compared with other teas such as milk tea and lemon tea, the consumption scene of herbal tea is relatively single. Zhu Danpeng said in an interview with Times Finance that the consumption scene of herbal tea functional drinks is mainly concentrated in catering hot pot restaurants.
One of Wang Laoji's big moves in recent years is to broaden sales channels. Its subsidiary Baiyun Mountain (600332. SH) 2019 annual report shows that "the product demand for Wang Laoji herbal tea has a certain correlation with the season, and sales will increase when the weather is hot." At the same time, the Group vigorously develops the sales channels of the major holiday gift market, so the sales volume of Wang Laoji herbal tea in various major festivals is large. ”
On the beverage shelves of a supermarket in Panyu, Guangzhou, there are very few herbal tea categories. Image source: Times Finance photo
In addition, a research report released by Dongguan Securities in November 2019 said that as the main force of baiyun mountain health plate, Wang Laoji occupies more than 70% of the shipping end of the market in the herbal tea market, and in the future, Wang Laoji pays more attention to channel competition rather than simple competition in the herbal tea market.
Zhu Danpeng told Times Finance that the channel of Wang Laoji's gift attributes is doing well in the northern market, which is a very good supplement to Wang Laoji's sales throughout the year, making it achieve year-round sales.
However, Ping An Securities' research report in February this year pointed out that "due to the epidemic, the demand for social networking and gifts has decreased, and some beverages represented by herbal tea, which occupy a place in the Spring Festival gift market, have suffered negative impacts." ”
Herbal tea has developed to the present, and the situation is somewhat embarrassing.
Traditional herbal tea shops stick to tradition and cannot innovate, and it is difficult to combine medicinal effects and tastes. The traditional herbal tea shops that used to be everywhere on the streets have been replaced by milk tea shops, and because of the small number of people who adapt to the crowd, they cannot go out of the Lingnan area.
In order to expand the consumer population, Wang Laoji and Jiaduobao have to move closer to general drinks and become less like herbal tea and more like sugar water, but even so, they are increasingly unable to fight other drinks in the market. So he sought a change in business direction and expanded the consumption scene, but he was hit by the epidemic.
If herbal tea does not want to be completely "cooled", innovation and transformation are imminent.
How long have you not drunk herbal tea?
Nearly a week
More than a week, less than a month
More than one month, less than three months
More than three months
I haven't drunk it in years
Never drank it