"Ice products, which have always been the main delicacies and indulgences, have now begun to blow a healthy wind, what new products can stand out this year?"
文：Eva Fan
Source: Foodaily Daily Food (ID: foodaily)
In the summer, the ice market is gradually heating up.
Recently, the ice industry dark horse Zhong Xue Gao joined hands with the National Olympic Sports Center to launch a new "juvenile" series of ice cream, focusing on low fat, low sugar, higher protein and other professional positioning; the newly designed packaging adds the image of sports teenagers, full of youth vitality. In this new product, we have captured the three consumer concepts of "health", "nutrition" and "exercise", which are currently attracting much attention.
In the current market, health has become one of the most important innovation directions. In various fields such as beverages, ice products, dairy products, and sugar, products that focus on plant-based, low-fat, low-sugar, nutritional fortification concepts, and sports elements are constantly emerging. The food market in 2022 will set off a different wave of health.
After the baptism of the new wave of consumption, the ice industry is accelerating the pace of evolution and iteration, from seasonal consumption to "year-round"; from the emergence of tricks, highlighting the concept of indulgence, to the pursuit of natural health, and integrating more elements of the times. In the new market environment, how can ice brands jump out of the traditional development ideas that focus on taste and grasp the balance between delicious and healthy?
The health wave swept in,
Unlock new outlets in the food industry
At present, the national health awareness is unprecedentedly strengthened, and the health economy with sports and fitness and scientific diet as the core continues to be hot. People from the simple pursuit of salt reduction and sugar reduction, to low calorie light food, Chinese nourishment has successively led the diet trend, healthy diet has become the mainstream concept of life.
The "2022 Edition of China's Ice Cream Industry In-depth Research and Development Trend Analysis Report" believes that the continuous improvement of China's consumption level will bring about a further expansion of the ice cream market capacity, and the market direction will therefore move towards nutrition, health, fun and high-end. According to the survey results released by the 2022 Giant Arithmetic &36Kr Research Institute, among the factors of concern for consumers to buy food and beverages, the first is "paying attention to the information of low fat, low sugar, low sodium, low calorie and other information in the ingredient list" accounted for 57.4%, while 3 of the top 4 influencing factors are related to health.
Image source: 2021 China Cutting-edge Brand Development Research - Food and Beverage Industry Report, Mega Arithmetic &36Kr Research Institute
Public reports show that the mainland ice product market reached 165 billion yuan in 2021, ranking first in the world. According to the "Online Ice Consumption Trend Report (2021 Edition)" jointly released by Tmall Little Black Box and Alimama, the sales of low-fat products in the domestic online ice cream market increased by 131% year-on-year, and sugar-free products increased by 128%, and domestic and foreign brands are setting off a wave of health.
Not long ago, Mengniu launched the NOPA-fired milkshake, with "high-fiber low-calorie 0 sucrose" as the selling point, adding CLA glycerides imported from Germany, which helps regulate lipid metabolism; Hankou No. 2 Factory's sugar-controlled charcoal roasted milk tea is added to the molasses extract Phenolin, which controls the glycemic index (GI value) below 55, bringing a longer sense of fullness; KFC and OATLY's oat ice cream is based on imported oat milk as the core ingredient, focusing on health labels such as "plant-based", "low-fat cocoa powder", "no trans fat" and so on Zhou Zero cooperated with AKOKO to launch the plant meat snowflake puff pastry, creatively combining plant meat with snowflake puff pastry, and integrating the light truck burden reduction attribute of plant meat into traditional dim sum.
Image source: Mengniu, OATLY, Hankou No. 2 Factory and other brand official websites
All-natural, imported ingredients, additive-free (or less additive-free), "rich...", functional ingredients, plant-based, these dazzling claims and concepts have become the most common ways for the food industry to respond to the big health trend.
The addition and subtraction of nutrients is an important step in the health of the food industry, but the industry also pointed out that the concept of health is indispensable, but as a fundamental attribute of food, the taste performance cannot be lost. Health at the formula level alone may not be able to satisfy consumers for a long time.
Behind the large number of products, the inner volume dispute around the "health value" is clearly visible. When the development of balances is clearly inclined to health, and the flavor is compromised by more "beautiful" nutritional values, how can consumers be guaranteed a good taste experience? Sugar and fat should be "cleared", and protein and probiotic parameters should be added to the limit, so can it really win the long-term favor of the public?
Taste First & Healthy Indulgence:
How ice product development is moving towards the 2.0 era
The pursuit of delicious food is human instinct. Adding a healthy element to the delicious, the "indulgence under the blessing of health", is a new strategy to make the delicious taste sustainable. Obviously, the balance between delicious and healthy is not easy to do well. Some products that work hard around the concept of health value also have many consumer voices that point out problems such as poor taste.
Wang Gang, deputy director of the Scientific Training Service Department of the National Olympic Sports Center, said: "Health + delicious has become an important development direction of the entire ice cream industry, but the balance between low sugar, low fat and taste is a problem in the research and development of nutritional products. The biggest pain point faced when doing low fat and low sugar is that once the milk fat content and sweetness are reduced, the ice cream will not be delicious. ”
Image credit: fit.thequint
Taking low-sugar products with added sweeteners as an example, many of them are still different from products that simply use sucrose in terms of sweetness performance, and "sweet imbalance", "sweet taste is difficult to hang on the tongue", "post-bitter taste" and so on make it difficult for increasingly picky consumers to be satisfied. In low-fat products, it is difficult to completely reproduce the full and mellow feeling of natural fats instead of fats. These flavor challenges are not only the questions that food brands that pursue the concept of health must answer, but also the key to making products stand out.
From the 1.0 era of "taste first" to the 2.0 era of "healthy indulgence", how should the ice industry complete this step?
"Unlike foreign consumers who prefer sweet ice cream, domestic consumers do not like sweetness in taste, and prefer products with innovation, appearance and high quality, especially the trend driven by sports fitness and healthy diet, making healthy ice cream in the direction of low-fat, low-sugar and high-protein, which is being welcomed by the market and is becoming a new growth point in the industry." Shen Jiani, head of Research and Development of Zhong Xuegao, said.
According to Foodaily, Zhong Xuegao's "Juvenile" series of ice cream launched this time, with the three major nutritional directions of "higher protein, low sugar and low fat" as the starting point, the whole series includes low sugar , small grain coffee, low sugar velvet cocoa, low fat guava coconut, high protein content of rose lychee milk and sea salt coconut coconut a total of 5 flavors, advocating that consumers enjoy a variety of flavors at the same time can also eat healthy and burden-free, is an upgrade combination of "output health" and "carving flavor".
Image source: Zhong Xuegao
In the ice industry, it is not difficult to simply make delicious or healthy and nutritious food, but how to maintain a good flavor and taste on the basis of low sugar and low fat is the research and development difficulty. According to Zhong Xuegao's team, the research and development of this juvenile series is jointly studied with the National Olympic Sports Center, after establishing a consistent research and development concept, comprehensively considering the dimensions of flavor, process, materials, etc., the two sides will lock the key on the raw materials, after dozens of raw materials are constantly arranged and combined, hundreds of tests and blind tests of taste, etc., and finally launched this 5 flavor ice cream.
Taking the low-fat guava coconut ice cream as an example, each ice cream contains only 84 kcal of calories and has a fat content of 3.0g/100g, which is more than 80% less fat than the regular version. The R & D team chose a combination of guava and coconut, of which the guava flavor comes from the original pulp made of guava pulp, which can excellently restore the true rich fruit aroma, maintain a rich and dense taste, and the guava itself is also a fruit with a low fat content (0.4g/100g), and then adjust the appropriate ratio with low-fat raw materials, which can ensure the flavor and smooth taste of the fragrant and silky flavor, and achieve low fat without burden.
Image source: Zhong Xuegao
Mei Li Milk Ice Cream is another distinctive product in the "Junior" series. It has a relatively high protein content - 7.0g/100g, which is equivalent to about 1 cup of 150ml of pure milk, exceeding the protein content requirement of 0.4% in the national standard of ice cream, and fully meets the current consumer preferences for a more nutritious diet. On the forging "delicious", Zhong Xuegao uses refreshing lychee juice with rich rose filling, as well as mellow milk, and multiple layers of fragrance to create a beautiful taste.
The food and beverage industry has never lacked capital stories about delicious grass and zero sugar low calorie, but to achieve a balance between flavor and health value, it is inseparable from the insight and grasp of consumers' subtle psychology and demands, and how to think integrated is a test of a brand's research and development concept.
Zhong Xuegao's unremitting pursuit of delicious + healthy has won it lasting love from the public. And this development concept of making delicious and healthy "continuous" impress new people is also exampled outside the ice industry. For example, "Daily Black Qiao" adds inulin rich in dietary fiber to the formula, so that the product achieves zero sucrose but at the same time leaves a 7-point sweet taste; in its best-selling single milk black qiao to maintain 48% cocoa solids content, but also to cater to the plant-based boom, timely launch of oat black qiao, quinoa black qiao and other products, refreshing consumers' inherent cognition of chocolate.
Image source: Daily Black Qiao
A new generation of young consumers has a unique "punk wellness" philosophy that values both physical and mental health and is unwilling to give up the indulgent moments of life. The brand's main concept of health should be based on the premise of satisfying the basic consumer desire. The reason why Zhong Xuegao's "Youth" series emphasizes the balance between deliciousness and health is to adhere to the delicious nature of food in order to form a continuous consumption power and bring consumers a sustainable value experience.
"Sport" empowers, "teenagers" break the circle
In Zhong Xuegao's "Juvenile" series of new products, we see a strong movement element. The combination of food and sports elements has become more and more fierce in the industry in recent years. Not only traditional food companies, in the new consumer brands, such as Yuanqi Forest, Luckin Coffee, Keep, etc. signed Olympic champions, borrowing the Enthusiasm of the Chinese Olympics to win traffic for the brand; and the daily black qiao held hands with the new generation of popular wang Yibo, advocating the brand spirit of "not broken, not standing", which has been widely recognized by the public.
Why are new consumer brands so fond of sporty elements? In Foodaily's view, brands hope to bring consumers a good experience through product innovation, which is not only a sense of satisfaction and pleasure brought by taste and health, but also contains advocacy and encouragement from a positive lifestyle. The positive and enterprising, brave and fearless carried by the spirit of sports is the ideal juvenile style of young consumers.
Image source: Zhong Xuegao
In the eyes of Zhong Xuegao's team, Chinese teenagers represent "hard work, not accepting defeat, spontaneity, and freedom", and the teenagers' "rock solid, enthusiastic galloping" is highly in line with the theme of the current era. Therefore, the professional upgraded products developed in cooperation with the official of the National Olympic Sports Center, in the name of "youth", combined with the elements of "sports", strengthen the external image of the brand that constantly breaks through itself, and also resonates with the product as a link and the consumer spirit of the new era, and transmits the concept of healthy life in the new era.
Simple ink freehand, with the help of Li Bai's "Chivalrous Walk" two poems "Silver saddle illuminates the white horse, fluttering like a shooting star", Zhong Xuegao let the spirited young man in fresh clothes jump on the paper - long wisps in his hands, heroic posture. Looking at the sports arena, the new generation of athletes who "dare to win and are not afraid to lose" are also worthy of the role models of the times.
New brands are advocating a positive concept of life through updated ways, showing the whole industry more product innovation space and development potential. Two months ago, at the Beijing Winter Olympics, Yuanqi Forest joined hands with Gu Ailing, Su Yiming and Xu Mengtao, three new idol champions of Chinese youth, which is also a victory that resonates with consumer emotions. In the new generation of athletes, in addition to dedication and hard work, the characteristics of loving life, enjoying sports, having the courage to express themselves, and breaking through the limits are the spirit of the times that the current Chinese people are pursuing.
Image source: Genki Forest
Healthy food and sports style are a new lifestyle advocacy set off by the current new consumption, and also provide a solution for the upgrading of the industry, and the fierce market competition also brings consumers more experience space and market choices than before.
summary
The new wave of consumption is constantly surging, and the ice industry is moving towards the 2.0 era. Eating healthy in traditional indulgent products and experiencing a positive attitude towards life is another attempt by the ice industry to create a new brand image and broaden the penetration rate of consumption. In Zhong Xuegao's "Youth Series", a freshly dressed teenager who is not afraid of dangers and obstacles and chases the wind wantonly resonates with consumers in the new era. The ice industry, represented by Zhong Xuegao, is also completing product innovation and upgrading, passing on the concept of healthy life in the new era.