There is a common stereotype that short Chinese, especially men, have suffered the humiliation of being inferior to foreigners online for years.
In fact, for more than 30 years, the average height of Chinese men is 175.7 cm, surpassing Japan and South Korea, becoming the first in East Asia, although not as good as the world's tallest Dutchman, has been infinitely close to the average height of American boys of 176.9 cm.
This is directly related to the improvement of living standards, the sharp rise in the consumption of meat, eggs and milk, and the substantial increase in nutritional intake.
Milk, no longer a luxury, has long entered the ordinary family table, and after the realization of milk (room temperature milk) freedom, the milk industry, which has remained unchanged for many years, is also quietly undergoing great changes.
Milk rings despise chains: protein, cryogenic, juanshan cow
Dairy companies are getting more and more rolled, especially in the past three years, the milk market has followed a clear road of upgrading and fighting monsters.
Roll nutrients. Before 2020, the public's perception of milk was relatively poor, no matter under the banner of milk, in fact, flavored drinks such as modulated milk and reconstituted milk, as long as the packaging was written milk, it was considered milk.
In 2020, a self-media article of the two major dairy companies Yili and Mengniu was like a depth bomb, allowing consumers to pay unprecedented attention to an indicator in the milk ingredient list - protein content, with 3g/100g as the standard, the higher the better milk.
For example, Yili and Mengniu are the cheapest and most common pure milk, because the milk taste is weak is regarded as drinking water, in fact, the protein has 3.2g/100g, higher than the national standard of 2.8g/100g and the 3g/100g of the Agricultural Reclamation Dairy Alliance.
After consumers paid attention to protein, this number also rolled up, the pure milk content of Jindian and Trensu reached 3.6g/100g, the protein content of Guangming Youjia pure milk was also 3.6g/100g, Huishan Jessie Zhiyou reached 3.8g/100g, and Jindian New Zealand imports, Theland, etc. even reached 4g/100g.
Dairy companies have also opened up ideas, targeting the elderly and students, adding calcium, vitamin D, and adding cream to make the milk taste thicker. Yili concentrated milk contains 150mg of calcium per 100ml, Mengniu Huan Light Bone Power Milk specially adds casein phosphopeptide, vitamin D, no added sucrose, Guangming Youjia Yigu milk is known as 1.5 times milk source calcium + vitamin D + CBP colostrum alkaline protein.
Volume temperature. After solving 3g/100g protein as the minimum standard for qualified milk in 2020, in 2021, dairy companies have reached a new height and opened the temperature war, which is actually a technical dispute between room temperature dairy companies to compete for the market share of regional fresh milk enterprises, sterilized milk and pasteurized milk.
A carton of milk at home is room temperature milk, after a short time of ultra-high temperature sterilization, the shelf life is up to 6-12 months, but the nutritional value and taste will be lost, the advantage is that the amount is large, cheap, enough, and room temperature transportation, storage, logistics storage costs are low. The representative of normal temperature milk enterprises is the familiar Yili and Mengniu.
Room temperature milk is only satisfied with milk to drink, another sign of whether milk is good or not is that the shorter the shelf life, the more complete the nutrition preservation.
Therefore, refrigerated low-temperature fresh milk C debut, usually only 3-7 days shelf life, using a lower temperature, longer time pasteurization method, to maximize the preservation of fresh milk nutrients and flavor. The shelf life of pasteurized milk of local dairy enterprises such as Sanyuan, Guangming, Huishan, New Hope, Yantang, Weigang and other local dairy enterprises is 3 days to 9 days.
Because pasteurized fresh milk needs to be stored at low temperatures, transported in the cold chain, and delivered to consumers from the factory, there is often a shelf life of more than half, dairy companies have launched a new concept - ultra-ba milk, through technical upgrades, the shelf life is 10 to more than 20 days longer than pasteurized milk, and the taste and nutrition will not differ much.
Mengniu Modern Pasture, Mengniu Daily Fresh Language, Yili Fresh Milk, Yili Jindian Fresh Milk have a shelf life of 15 days. Coca-Cola also launched Fairlife, a super-ba milk product with an ultra-long shelf life of 28 days, with Mengniu.
This ambiguous approach increases the cost of consumer choice, thinking that they are buying pasteurized milk, but in fact it is super milk, and even some dairy companies put low-temperature milk in the refrigerated area.
Roll cow breeds. In 2022, the involution of dairy enterprises is entering the third stage, and whoever has Juanshan Niu will enjoy the supreme titles of "Queen of Milk" and "Hermes of Dairy Cows". Juanshan cow is to dairy enterprises what 183cm is to the dignity of men.
There are about 1 billion cattle in the world, but only 1/7 can be called dairy cows, and among the six major breeds, Holstein cattle native to the Netherlands are the most common, and the impression of black and white flower cattle is it. At present, more than 85% of the dairy cows in the mainland are Chinese Holstein cattle bred by crossbreeding Holstein cattle with mainland cattle.
And let the dairy companies compete for Juanshan beef native to the British island of Jersey, small size, golden fur, very beautiful, Queen Victoria once introduced it to the Royal Windsor Farm, proper "noble blood", taking the "closed breeding" breed purification route, but also protected by British legislation, so purebred Juanshan cattle are rare worldwide, only about 200,000.
Image source: Station B @Chai Knowledge
In the mid-90s of the 20th century, the Guangzhou Dairy Research Institute introduced a small number of purebred Juanshan cows to carry out introduction experiments, and then popularized, but Juanshan cows are relatively difficult to raise, like warm environments, fine feed, low milk production, and mortality rates as high as 5%, compared with only 3% for Holstein cattle.
According to Sanlian Life Weekly, only about 1.7% of the 7 million dairy cows in China are currently in stock.
But what really makes Juanshan cows curious is the outstanding nutritional value: the protein content is about 4.3%, which is two or three percent higher than that of Holstein cattle; The fat content is about 5%, even up to 8%, Holstein milk is only 3.7%. This is also why Juanshan milk has a rich and mellow taste, and Holstein milk has a weak taste and no milk taste.
Of course, the improvement of taste and nutritional value has also pushed up the price, for example, Guangdong local dairy enterprise Xiangmanlou, 946ml Juanshan milk, shelf life of 10 days, priced at 37.5 yuan, New Hope Dairy 24-hour limited Juanshan milk price of 35.8 yuan, specification of 720ml/box.
After analyzing the three milk market rolls, we can come up with an equation, high protein + rare milk source + low temperature = top of the milk food chain.
Behind the involution of dairy enterprises, the pattern may usher in a big change
Behind the milk ring's contempt chain, in fact, the industry structure is being reshaped.
From the perspective of the dairy industry as a whole, it began to enter a period of rapid development in 2006, and until 2014, the industry scale exceeded 300 billion yuan. But the ceiling also followed, from 2015 for three consecutive years, the sales growth rate of the dairy industry began to be lower than the unit price growth rate, and the overall growth rate was reduced to less than 5%.
The sales volume of liquid milk, which accounts for more than 90% of the dairy market, also declined significantly after 2016, with growth rates of -2.06%, -1.07% and -0.98% from 2017 to 2019, respectively.
From the perspective of the competition pattern, the mainland dairy industry has a high degree of concentration, showing an obvious oligopolistic competition pattern. In 2020, the market share of the two giants Yili and Mengniu together reached 48%, and CR6 reached 58.6%.
This means that the era of "quantity increase" in the industry has passed, and the market urgently needs "quality increase", which is not only a challenge in the bottleneck period of the industry, but also an opportunity for small and medium-sized dairy enterprises to break the industry pattern.
This pass is to use the consumption upgrade Dongfeng, through the continuous expansion of the subdivision track, to play differentiated products to complete the high-end.
In fact, the road to high-end domestic dairy enterprises has gone quite early.
In 2005, Mengniu Trensu fired the first shot of domestic high-end milk with the phrase "not all milk is called Trensu", and then Yili quickly launched the golden code against Trensu, emphasizing organic, natural and high-quality milk.
Sales prove that the high-end liquid milk market has great potential.
Taking Trensu as an example, after 6 product update iterations, the unit price increased from the initial 5.4 yuan to 9.9 yuan. Trensu, which has been established only 7 years ago, has reached 30 billion yuan in sales by 2021, contributing nearly one-third of Mengniu's revenue, and Mengniu's gross profit margin has also increased by about 14 percentage points from 2005 to 2021 due to the boost of high-end products.
According to data from Guoyuan Securities, from 2016 to 2021, the retail sales of high-end liquid milk in mainland China increased from 87.8 billion yuan to 184.9 billion yuan, while the sales of ordinary liquid milk increased almost nothing during the same period.
At this time, the high-end milk circle is actually not to the point of "involution", under the absolute control of the market share of the two giants of Yili and Mengniu, at most, Yili and Mengniu are busy wrenching their wrists, and other dairy companies are crowded to watch, you may wish to see this stage as paving the way for the next cut into the subdivision track, rolling protein and other high nutrients.
But when Yili and Mengniu began to enter the low-temperature fresh milk category, which originally belonged to the sphere of influence of regional dairy companies, the involution really began.
According to data from the Prospective Industry Research Institute, from 2019 to 2021, the market size of low-temperature fresh milk (pasteurized milk) climbed from 34.3 billion liters to 41.4 billion liters, except for 2020, when the epidemic just broke out, the market size growth rate in other years was higher than 10%.
Low-temperature fresh milk has become one of the fastest growing categories in the domestic dairy industry.
From the perspective of the international dairy consumption structure, low-temperature fresh milk is the general trend. In developed countries, fresh milk accounts for more than 90% of liquid milk, including 99.9% in Canada, 99.7% in the United States, and 98% in Japan and South Korea.
The market share of normal temperature milk in the mainland is close to 90%, and the problem of drinking milk has been solved, and the next step is to drink good milk.
Mengniu officially entered the low-temperature fresh milk market in 2018, and launched 17 fresh milk products a year, of which Daily Fresh Language increased by 73% in 2018, and Yili's layout was still dominated by room temperature, and only launched 3 low-temperature fresh milk products by the end of 2019.
The data shows that in 2018, the representative enterprises of low-temperature pasteurized milk were Guangming, Sanyuan and New Hope Dairy, with market shares of 11.5%, 9.2% and 5.9% respectively.
It can be seen that due to the rapid growth of low-temperature fresh milk and the low concentration of the industry, there is an opportunity to give birth to leading enterprises, which is also the reason why Yili and Mengniu entered the market.
Giants entered, and small and medium-sized dairy enterprises had to roll up in order to survive.
The original room temperature milk track, under the ultra-high temperature sterilization technology "north milk south transport", no need to worry about the distance, Yili, Mengniu pastures are remote, but can be quickly rolled out across the country to seize the market.
Local dairy enterprises are mostly local brands, pastures are close to surrounding cities, convenient for transportation, products are mainly low-temperature fresh milk, but the brand radiation range is low, such as Yantang out of Guangdong, Qi Mu out of Gansu, mountain flowers out of Guizhou, few people know.
The most important thing is that the rapid development of fresh e-commerce has further improved cold chain logistics and expanded the radius of low-temperature fresh milk. On this basis, in 2020, live streaming will explode, with the blessing of social e-commerce channels such as Xiaohongshu and Station B, local dairy companies will sweep the milk circle as Internet celebrities, smoothly participating in the national market competition, and the milk on the shelf is no longer dominated by Yili and Mengniu.
For example, Junlebao signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Daily Fresh in Beijing, and Hema Fresh cooperated with Anjia in Shanghai, New Hope Dairy in southwest China, and Wen Dairy in South China to launch "Daily Fresh" fresh milk, which is mainly sold for one day and not overnight.
Xinjiang dairy enterprises have also become the target of post-95 generation, and Tianrun launched Guangdong exclusive fresh milk. Xinjiang Daily once reported that "unique resources have made Xinjiang dairy products more and more popular with consumers, and the average annual growth rate of export to the mainland in the past three years has exceeded 30%."
Therefore, we can see that the number of dairy enterprises above designated size in the country decreased year by year from 2015 to 2019, but it grew against the trend in 2020. By the end of November 2021, the number of dairy enterprises above designated size in mainland China reached 591.
Local dairy companies have also taken to the capital market to seek financing to expand their core competitiveness.
Around 2020, a large number of dairy companies pushed IPOs, such as Ketuo Biotechnology, Panda Dairy, Yiming Food, followed by 2021, Li Ziyuan and Youran Ranch were listed on A-shares and Hong Kong stocks respectively, during the same period, Jane Ai Yogurt, Adopt a Cow, and Bright Dairy won hundreds of millions of yuan in financing.
2022 ushered in a wave of new and old dairy companies listing climax, after the successful listing of Sunshine Dairy in May, 13 dairy companies have successively launched listing plans, including Hebei's old dairy enterprise Junlebao, and new dairy enterprises that have "raised cattle for users" marketing "adopt a cow".
end
Whether it's higher protein content, rarer cow breeds, or shorter shelf life, all the way to go is that milk prices are getting higher and higher.
Only 40 years Chinese to achieve milk freedom, are you going to lose milk freedom again?
Prospective Economist APP Industry Observation Group
For more industry research analysis, see:
[1] "2022-2027 China Low Temperature Dairy Industry Development Prospect and Investment Strategic Planning Analysis Report", Prospective Industry Research Institute
[2] "2022-2027 China Dairy Industry In-depth Research and Investment Strategic Planning Analysis Report", Prospective Industry Research Institute
At the same time, the Prospective Industry Research Institute also provides solutions such as industrial big data, industrial research, policy research, industrial chain consulting, industrial map, industrial planning, park planning, industrial investment promotion, regional industry benchmarking research, IPO fundraising and investment feasibility study, IPO business and technology writing, IPO working paper consulting and so on.
Resources:
[1] "Dairy enterprises "involution", young people are almost unable to drink milk", Hedgehog Commune
[2] "Juanshan Milk Pushes Up the Price of Milk Again", Mars Business
[3] "Real and fake "fresh" milk: shelf life up to 20 days, which dairy companies are "exploiting"? , Finance
[4] "Juanshan, the next star track? , Dairy Finance