On June 7, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily learned from the relevant person in charge of Coca-Cola that a new healthy workshop series of summer dry grass herbal tea was added to the official flagship store of Coca-Cola, which is the first time that Coca-Cola has laid out the herbal tea market Chinese mainland in recent years. It is reported that the product is priced at "10 yuan +" per bottle of 500ml specifications, which is more than twice the price of the same specification Wang Laoji herbal tea, and its brand is Healthy Workshop, which joined Coca-Cola in 2005 and has more than 30 years of experience in the Hong Kong plant herbal tea beverage market.
In the industry's view, Coca-Cola's move to introduce this herbal tea to the mainland market is an important step in the strategy of all-category beverages, and also releases its ambition to further compete for the herbal tea market. However, in the mainland market, the overall market heat of the herbal tea market is not high, and herbal tea brands such as Wang Laoji and Heqizheng have already occupied most of the market share, and Coca-Cola has entered the market at a high price at this time, and it is not easy to get a share of it.
Entered the herbal tea market
"The introduction of healthy workshop summer dry grass herbal tea is the first time that Coca-Cola has laid out herbal tea categories in the Chinese mainland market in recent years." The relevant person in charge of Coca-Cola told the Beijing Business Daily reporter.
"Herbal Formula" and "Heat Reduction" are the selling points of Healthy Workshop Summer Dry Grass Herbal Tea Drinks. The product introduction page of the Coca-Cola Coca-Cola Tmall flagship store shows that the product name of the healthy workshop summer dry grass herbal tea highlights the composition of summer dry grass, while emphasizing that it is "heat-clearing and fire-reducing tea", and the bottle body of the product also indicates "luo han guo brings out natural sweetness" and "no additional artificial flavors and colors".
In terms of price, Coca-Cola Health Workshop Herbal Tea is slightly higher than its peers. Beijing Business Daily reporter noted that the price of 24 bottles / box of Coca-Cola Health Workshop Summer Dry Grass Herbal Tea is 297 yuan, and the price of a single bottle of 500ml is more than 10 yuan, while the price of Wang Laoji of 310ml * 24 bottles / box is 65.9 yuan, which is converted into 500ml And the price of each bottle is less than 5 yuan.
According to the relevant person in charge of Coca-Cola, "Coca-Cola China introduced the healthy workshop summer dry grass herbal tea plant beverage to the mainland and launched it for sale at the Coca-Cola Tmall flagship store, which is to give the company a guide to the company's all-category beverage strategy and explore the subdivision of tea beverages."
According to the data, in 2016, Coca-Cola proposed to be a "full-category beverage company". In May 2017, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey announced an "all-category strategy" to lead Coca-Cola out of its comfort zone. In the past two years, in addition to the above-mentioned herbal tea products, Coca-Cola has also entered the Chinese mainland market into alcohol, coffee, dairy products and other business sectors.
Foreign monks chant well
"Health Workshop has more than thirty years of experience in the plant herbal tea beverage market." The relevant person in charge of Coca-Cola said, "The predecessor of the health workshop is Tongzhitang, which was founded in Hong Kong in 1989 and sold traditional herbal tea at that time. In 2000, the Healthy Workshop was established, replacing Tongzhitang and changing from traditional herbal tea to providing plant-based herbal tea drinks suitable for urban life. Since November 2005, Health Kobo has joined the Coca-Cola Company. ”
According to the information on the official website of Health Workshop, the brand not only sells bottled tea such as undersea coconut river shell almond tea, fresh kumquat barley water, golden fruit Luohan tea, etc., but also sells packaged snacks including matsutake mushrooms and Huaishan berries pork roasted wheat. In addition, Healthy Workshop has a number of offline stores in Hong Kong.
In the view of Shen Meng, director of Chanson Capital, Coca-Cola chose to enter the mainland herbal tea market with the healthy workshop brand because the healthy workshop itself is a brand in the herbal tea market, and its brand value accumulation in Hong Kong can be directly introduced to the mainland market. "The reason why Healthy Workshop has not entered the mainland market for more than 10 years because the mainland herbal tea market in 2005 is still in the pattern of Wang Laoji's family, and the overall demand scale is still small, and the growth pressure of Coca-Cola's core product market is not large."
Around 2005, the herbal tea market in Chinese mainland was in full swing. According to relevant statistics, during the period from 2002 to 2005, Wang Laoji's sales soared 10 times. Since then, the sales of the red can "Wang Laoji" have even surpassed Coca-Cola for a while. At that time, in the mainland market, Coca-Cola's carbonated beverage track was trapped in the cognitive label of "unhealthy".
Brand power is still needed
At present Chinese mainland market still has herbal tea giants such as Wang Laoji and Heqizheng, and Coca-Cola still needs to expand the influence of mainland brands in the field of herbal tea.
According to the data of the Prospective Research Institute, the market size of the herbal tea industry continued to expand from 2011 to 2017, but 2015 was a turning point, and the growth rate of China's herbal tea industry began to slow down, and the growth rate of the herbal tea market in 2016 and 2017 was lower than double digits, far lower than the previous high-speed growth of 15%-16%. According to relevant data, in 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic on the Spring Festival peak season, the market share of ready-to-drink herbal tea in Asia fell by 27.1%.
Under the slowdown in the growth momentum of the herbal tea industry, various herbal tea brands are also riveting to break through the bottleneck. In recent years, Wang Laoji, a leading herbal tea company, has successively launched black herbal tea, sugar-free herbal tea, sugar-free bubble herbal tea, jasmine herbal tea and other products; Dali Group's herbal tea brand and its positive also launch bubble herbal tea, sugar-free herbal tea and so on. Herbal tea companies do not want to go further under the trend of bubble drinks and sugar-free drinks.
According to the data, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd., to which Wang Laoji belongs, is the second largest ready-to-drink tea beverage enterprise in China, with its market share increasing from 15.5% in 2020 to an estimated 17.7% in 2021. Among the top five companies in 2019-2021, Guangyao Baiyunshan is the only player who relies on herbal tea to "get on the list" and ranks second.
"Looking at the pattern of China's herbal tea market, at present, the head brand is only Wang Laoji, and the sum of the second, third and fourth enterprises is less than 60% of Wang Laoji." Relying on the entire Supply Chain of Coca-Cola and its brand tone, diversified layout, and its mental position in the new generation of consumers, the overall assessment is that if Coca-Cola wants to occupy the second place in the herbal tea market, or grab one of the second, third and fourth shares, it is still possible. Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in the Chinese food industry, said.
However, Shen Meng said, "Although Coca-Cola has high-quality brand and marketing capabilities and a perfect sales system, the brand of Healthy Workshop still needs to expand its influence in the mainland."
Beijing Business Daily reporter Guo Xiujuan Wang Xiao Image source: Coca-Cola Tmall official flagship store