Written by / Cheng Liang
Editor / Yang Jie
On the evening of March 1, the news of "The price increase of Haoliyou" was on the weibo hot search.
Previously, some netizens broke the news that the Korean brand Haoliyou only increased the price of its products in some markets such as China, and other countries did not increase prices; at the same time, its ingredient list also had a "double standard" phenomenon, and the products produced and sold in China used substitute cocoa butter ingredients, rather than cocoa powder.
(Picture: Douban screenshot)
In this regard, Haoliyou responded on the official Weibo that with the sharp rise in raw material prices, Haoliyou Chinese products only made adjustments to the prices of some of the more affected distribution products in September last year, and the prices of all products did not make any adjustments after September last year. The main ingredients of Haoliyou Pie are globally consistent, and there is no "double standard" problem, which is due to the inaccurate expression of the translation software when translating the overseas ingredient list, coupled with the different requirements and titles of the ingredient list in various countries, so it has led to misunderstanding among netizens.
But this response was released in the form of screenshots of the mobile phone software "memo", which also caused many people to complain: "This is also too casual." ”
Subsequently, Haoliyou had to issue another official statement letter with the official seal. But in the Weibo comments, most users still don't buy what it says.
After all, it is not the first time that overseas brands have turned over on the issue of "double standard" of ingredients. In the Chinese market, they have also encountered challenges and have long since stepped off the "altar".
(Photo: Screenshot of the response of the official micro-response of Haoliyou)
The fatigue of the "chocolate pie"
"Good friend, good friend" has been a well-known advertising slogan for many people. But many people are also surprised to find out in this storm that the good friends who have accompanied them for decades are not a state-owned brand, but an authentic multinational enterprise.
According to public information, Hollywood Food Co., Ltd. belongs to the Korean Toyo Fruit Group, and the parent company belongs to the four major food companies in Korea along with Lotte, Nongshim and CJ (Xijie). In 1995, Hollywood officially entered the Chinese market. In order to open up sales channels, HaoLiyou also invited the popular star Lin Zhiying as a spokesperson. Hollywood's chocolate pie and egg yolk pie have also become the "darlings" of candy and pastry consumption in countless families.
At present, Hollywood has set up two production bases in Langfang, Hebei and Qingpu, Shanghai, and four business headquarters in Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and manages more than 60 sales offices nationwide.
Hollywood (China) product line mainly includes pie, cake and chewing gum series. In addition, the company's products also involve puffed foods, confectionery and biscuits and other categories. According to the official website, Haoliyou, which has been developing in China for nearly 27 years, already has "Q Ti", "Ya! Potatoes, potato wishes, many fish and mushroom power and other well-known brands. The chocolate pie that fell into the "double standard" storm this time is the traditional classic product of Haoliyou.
According to media reports, since 2010, China has surpassed South Korea to become the world's largest market for Hollywood Group. At the peak of Hollywood's development, the Chinese market accounted for about 50% of its total global sales.
It is understood that last year, Hollywood announced that due to the impact of rising costs of raw materials and labor, the price adjustment of some of its products in the pie category will be adjusted from September 1, 2021, of which the price of products such as Chocolate Pie and Q Ti of Hollyo has been raised by 6-10 percentage points in the Chinese market. This is also the first time in the past 11 years that the price of Haoliyou (China)'s products has increased.
It is worth mentioning that last year, the food and beverage industry ushered in a wave of collective price increases, and Companies such as Dali Foods, Coca-Cola, and Nestlé began to raise prices one after another. However, in the eyes of many industry insiders, the price increase of Haoliyou after 11 years has also exposed the growth fatigue of its traditional products.
The data shows that from 2016 to 2019, Haoliyou (China) achieved revenue of 7.718 billion yuan, 5.155 billion yuan, 5.607 billion yuan and 5.658 billion yuan respectively, showing a downward trend year by year. In 2020, the overall performance of Haoliyou (China) once again stood at the threshold of 7 billion yuan, but there is still a gap compared with 2016.
Xu Xiongjun, a strategic positioning expert and founder of Shanghai Jiude Positioning Consulting Company, once pointed out that the revenue scale of the Chinese market accounts for nearly half of Haoliyou's revenue, but in recent years, the rapid development of Chinese leisure food brands has further encroached on the market of Haoliyou.
Dali Garden, which started with the egg yolk pie that copied Hao Liyou, has become one of Hao LiYou's biggest competitors. In 2015, Dali Foods was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and at the peak of its stock price, The market value of Darley Foods reached HK$100 billion. In 2020, Dali Food's revenue reached 20.96 billion yuan and net profit was 3.85 billion yuan.
In the Chinese market, in addition to old rivals such as Dali Garden, Haoliyou now has to face the rise of the Internet against snack brands such as three squirrels, good shops, and baicaowei.
According to the report of the China Commercial Industry Research Institute, from 2016 to 2020, the compound annual growth rate of the mainland snack food industry will reach 12.09%, and it is expected that in 2022, the market size of the mainland snack food industry will reach 1520.4 billion yuan. But at the same time, with the growth of residents' income and the change of consumption concepts, "eating healthy" has gradually become the focus of daily diet consumption, and low-sugar, low-salt, low-carbohydrate snack foods will be the main force of market expansion.
With the rise of the "sugar-free" trend and the improvement of consumers' awareness of sugar control and health, the traditional sugar snack market has begun to shrink. According to Euromonitor International data, the size of China's chocolate retail market in 2020 was 20.43 billion yuan, a decrease of nearly 2 billion yuan compared with 22.34 billion yuan in 2019.
From 2018 to 2021, Dove, Kenda, Nestlé, Ferrero and Snickers, which occupy the top 5 places in the domestic chocolate market, have experienced different declines in market share. Dove slipped to 22.4 percent from 22.8 percent in 2018 and Ferrero down to 7.6 percent from 8.7 percent. In the past year, among the 53 consumer brands that have obtained new financing, the main business of sugar food is only the daily black qiao family under the banner of "0 sugar".
Under such a general trend, the chocolate pie, potato chips, etc. that Hollywood relies on to open the market have gradually "fallen out of favor". Coupled with the problem of rising costs, Haoliyou's choice to raise the price of some of its products seems to be a helpless move.
At the same time, Hollyo is also expanding new categories. At the 22nd China International Food and Beverage Exhibition last year, Hollyo shouted the slogan of "Good Friend, New Friend" and launched Jeju Lava Spring and Dart You Nut Stick Health Singles.
"For Hollywood, traditional products are already in decline, and it urgently needs to seek new growth points. From the perspective of the market, Haoliyou has new measures in the expansion of health food categories, which is a specific manifestation of the continuous forcing the industrial side to innovate, upgrade and iterate on the consumer side. Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said.
Double standard "cocoa butter generation"?
But what is more difficult for domestic consumers to accept is the problem of "cocoa butter" in the ingredients of Haoliyou.
"Finance world" weekly found that at present, in the domestic Taobao and Jingdong mall of the official flagship store of Haoliyou, the ingredient list of Haoliyou pie clearly states that it contains cocoa butter. In the ingredient list of Hollywood Pie imported from South Korea, there is no cocoa butter, only cocoa powder and other related ingredients.
However, whether it is the "translation problem" officially expressed by Haoliyou, the existence of cocoa butter is indeed marked in the Haoliyou products sold in China.
(Photo: Taobao mall Haoliyou product ingredients screenshot)
According to Baidu Encyclopedia, daicoa butter is a type of artificial stearin that can melt rapidly, and its triglyceride composition is completely different from natural cocoa butter, and its physical properties are close to natural cocoa butter. Chocolate products made from cocoa butter have a good surface, long retention and no surface frost due to temperature differences.
However, unlike natural cocoa butter, cocoa butter may have adverse effects on the body. According to Gu Zhongyi, director of the Beijing Dietitians Association, cocoa butter is a substitute for cocoa butter, which is a "fake" cocoa butter, which may involve the hydrogenation of vegetable oil in its production process and may produce trans fatty acids.
In the latest statement of Guanwei, Haoliyou stressed that cocoa butter and trans fatty acids are completely two different concepts, and the full range of products under Haoliyou are tested for trans fatty acid content in accordance with national food safety standards, and the results are in line with the national standard trans fat is "0 grams" of nutrient labeling standards.
In this regard, Yang Haixia, a professor at the College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering of China Agricultural University, said that trans fatty acids are saturated fatty acids that are unfavorable to human health, "it is difficult to be digested and absorbed after entering the human body, and it will always be in the blood, increasing cholesterol, which in turn causes various cardiovascular diseases, which will also affect memory." ”
Zhu Danpeng told the "Finance and Economics" Weekly that Haoliyou's reply is "debatable", but the excessive consumption of cocoa butter is undoubtedly damaging to the body, and the food containing cocoa butter needs to be clearly marked, if concealed, it is defrauding consumers. "Products in different countries to adopt different standards, in the development of enterprises is more common, but Haoliyou in this regard is not handled well, it for the overall cognition and positioning of the Chinese market are big problems."
Because of the use of "cocoa butter" problem and caught in the storm of public opinion, not only Haoliyou is a multinational enterprise.
Last August, Häagen-Dazs, a well-known ice cream brand known for its high price, "flipped" over the cocoa butter substitute. Because the affiliated company did not indicate on its description of the composition of its mooncake products that the chocolate skin was actually cocoa butter, it was ordered by the Shanghai Pudong New Area Municipal Supervision Bureau to stop publishing illegal advertisements and fined 10,000 yuan.
Although this has happened in the past year, Häagen-Dazs has been "scolded" by domestic consumers on Weibo hot search. Many users said that the "Louvre Moon" mooncake gift box specially supplied by Häagen-Dazs' Mid-Autumn Festival store last year sold for as much as 1188 yuan, and consumers paid such expensive fees, but they did not buy "quality", which inevitably felt that they were "deceived".
Prior to this, Menglong, a high-end ice cream brand owned by Helu Xue, was also exposed to "double standards" because of the use of vegetable oils and fats in the ice cream shell sold in the Chinese market. At that time, Menglong also "painstakingly" explained to consumers that "vegetable oil is not vegetable fat powder" and "ice cream and ice cream are not the same thing", and even took the opportunity to promote its upcoming new products.
Subsequently, Menglong officially deleted the relevant Weibo, but public opinion still could not be calmed down for a long time. From August last year to the present, Menglong's official Weibo has only updated 5 pieces of content, and most of the comments under each Weibo are "boycott" voices.
There are more and more overseas consumer brands that are "flipping over" in China. It is becoming increasingly difficult to "routine" Chinese consumers on the ingredient list.
Whether it is Häagen-Dazs or Hollyo, in the Chinese market, it no longer has the scenery of the past. According to the financial report data of Haagen-Dazs operator General Mills, in 2020, sales revenue of ultra-high-end ice cream has dropped from $803 million in 2018 to $718 million. Nowadays, with the general trend of consumption upgrading and the rise of domestic local brands, domestic consumers have become more and more mature, and they no longer "superstitiously" overseas brands, but more pursue personalized consumption and pay more attention to the cost performance of products.
Although there are still a large number of loyal users of overseas consumer brands in China, this is also based on the requirements for product quality. Once overseas brands emphasize marketing, light products, or engage in "double standards", consumers will inevitably "vote with their feet".