On August 31, McCafé, a professional artisanal coffee brand owned by McDonald's, announced the launch of the "Milk Iron Series" and completely removed the latte.
In 1990, the first McDonald's restaurant began offering freshly brewed coffee, and in 2009, McDonald's began offering handmade freshly ground coffee. In the nearly 30 years since McDonald's entered China, coffee has been an important business. In November 2020, McDonald's China announced that McCaffe will invest 2.5 billion yuan in the next three years to accelerate the layout of the Chinese mainland coffee market. At present, the number of mai coffee stores nationwide has reached nearly 2500, and as of the end of this year, the total number of mai coffee in Beijing, Hebei and Shanxi markets will exceed 400.
Zhang Jiayin, CEO of McDonald's China, said that in the past two years, the Mai Coffee brand has grown rapidly, with the number of stores expanding from about 800 to nearly 2,500 and more than 10,000 baristas. It is expected that in 2023, Mai Coffee will add about 1,000 stores, most of which are located in third-tier cities, bringing cost-effective daily good coffee to more consumers.
Wheat coffee milk iron came out. Photo/Courtesy of McDonald's
In line with the preferences of Chinese consumers, "milk iron" replaces latte
According to Mai Coffee, milk iron is milkier and thicker than latte. With the release of milk iron, Mai Coffee has also been replaced with a new "small yellow cup" series of packaging. In order to create milk iron, Mai Coffee exclusively customized blended M10+ coffee beans, made of coffee beans from Guatemala, Colombia, Ethiopia and Rwanda, with its own citrus, caramel, black qiao flavor, the formula won the 2022 IIAC International Coffee Tasting Competition Gold Award. In terms of extraction method, milk iron uses Double Ristretto instead of concentrated extraction (Espresso), and extracts a small amount of coffee essence with a large amount of powder to make the coffee more concentrated, thereby retaining more aroma and sweetness. Compared with the original hot latte of mai coffee, the milk content of hot milk iron is increased by about 30%, which can make the milk flavor and coffee taste more balanced.
In the research and development, in addition to the participation of professional baristas from Q-grader (CQI International Coffee Taster), Mai Coffee has also invited consumers and coffee experts from all over the world to blindly test, which is also to better meet the taste preferences of the public. In addition, the development process also takes into account the production of the store. The production process and recipe of the new products have a higher fault tolerance rate, ensuring the consistent quality of nearly 2500 wheat coffees.
According to a survey by Ai Media Consulting, most Chinese consumers prefer coffee that is rich, sweet and milky. As of 2021, Chinese consumers' favorite coffee shops to buy are two classic milk coffees, cappuccino and latte. "Milk Iron" will be used as the exclusive star product of Mai Coffee and will be sold in nearly 2500 Mai Coffee stores across the country for a long time. In addition, in order to better meet the different taste needs of consumers, Mai Coffee also supports four milk base options: milk, oat milk, thick coconut milk, and thick cow's milk. Consumers who have requirements for coffee concentration can still choose to add stronger.
There are nearly 2,500 stores nationwide, and second- and third-tier cities will become the focus of store opening
Jiang Yanli, senior general manager of Beijing McDonald's, introduced that Beijing has the largest number of mai coffee stores in the country, and at the end of this year, the total number of mai coffee in Beijing, Hebei and Shanxi markets will exceed 400, realizing online and offline omni-channel ordering and delivery, covering offline counters, mobile phone ordering and delivery platforms. Customers can choose to dine in or take away in the restaurant, or they can easily enjoy high-quality, cost-effective coffee through McDonald's delivery network. At the same time, Mai Coffee will continue to provide coffee monthly passes, discounts and other activities through the digital platform to meet the daily "just needs" of consumers for high-quality coffee with high cost performance.
Jiang Yanli, senior general manager of Beijing McDonald's, introduced the insight of the coffee market. Photo/Courtesy of McDonald's
In view of the increasingly competitive coffee market, Jiang Yanli believes that, first of all, the entire coffee industry in China is growing rapidly, which will naturally attract more and more competitors to enter the track, and everyone has their own competitive advantages. The positioning of Mai Coffee is always to make a cup of high-value handmade good coffee for consumers, so that high-quality coffee becomes within reach of daily life.
"Our goal is 'where there's McDonald's, there's mcDonald'." He revealed that at present, Mai Coffee's national stores have reached nearly 2500, which is nearly 3 times that of 2019, the national cup volume has increased by nearly 6 times, and Mai Coffee can basically cover 100% of all McDonald's restaurants in the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.
In 2023, efforts will be made to develop third-tier cities, and nearly 1,000 new stores are expected to open. In this regard, Jiang Yanli said that at present, China's coffee shops account for the largest proportion in first- and second-tier cities, while consumers in third-tier cities have higher and higher awareness and demand for coffee, and they are more accustomed to matching coffee with food.
"This is also one of the advantages of Mai Coffee entering third-tier cities." At McDonald's, you can drink high-quality coffee at the same time, paired with hot and fresh food. Jiang Yanli also mentioned that the biggest advantage of McCaffe is that it can rely on McDonald's to open stores at high speed, realize the "light investment" of 0 store rental costs, and fully share McDonald's top supply chain resources, localization operation experience, perfect training system, mature delivery network, and finally achieve systematic cost control, while ensuring coffee quality, to achieve value-added pricing.
Focus on young people and accelerate the pace of "pushing new"
According to relevant analysis reports, in the past two years, China's coffee market has shown characteristics such as diversified tastes, diversified forms, market sinking, digital operations, young groups, and diversified types. With the increasing popularity of coffee culture in China, Mai Coffee has found through research on the coffee drinking preferences of Chinese consumers that Chinese consumers prefer sweet and smooth milk coffee compared with black coffee such as the United States. At the same time, "diversification" is also more and more evident in the Chinese coffee market: some people value the need to refresh, some people pursue fresh curiosity, some people enjoy the offline atmosphere experience and the social attributes of coffee, and some folk coffee "tasting masters" like to find the root of the source.
Based on the characteristics of the Chinese market, Chinese consumer preferences and future consumption trends, Mai Coffee is committed to providing consumers with daily good coffee at their fingertips - value-added, convenient, delicious, cup freshly ground, to ensure quality. Backed by a strong McDonald's, it provides a wealth of meal combinations, makes full use of McDonald's' existing delivery network, and infiltrates diverse scenes such as breakfast, afternoon tea, and group meals; At the same time, it began to test the water hanging ear coffee in the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen to respond to the new demand of consumers for coffee.
Unlike McDonald's consumer groups with large age spans and large base numbers, Mai Coffee's audience is more focused on young people. With the post-90s and post-00s becoming the main force of Coffee consumption in China, the pace of pushing new wheat coffee has gradually accelerated. Since last year, Mai Coffee has successively launched a number of new products such as Sun Latte, Yuanqi Red Ginseng, and Cute Pet Coffee, playing a combination punch in taste innovation, raw material innovation and gameplay concept innovation. In 2021, McCaffe cross-border joint dove dove launched a limited edition bubble latte; At the beginning of 2022, Mai Coffee joined hands with Daily Black Qiao to carry out the activity of "starting to send red envelopes".
Mai Coffee said that it will continue to establish more novel and interesting interactions with young people on social platforms, and "play" with everyone through cross-border joint names and various creative brain holes.
Text/Wang Ping
Edited by Lin Wang
Proofread by Li Ming