In 2022, the 400 million Yuzu Valley "Double Pomelo Juice" ushered in a large number of "followers", in order to get rid of the negative impact of imitations, in July this year, Yuzu Xianggu announced that it would update and upgrade the "Double Pomelo Juice" category again, and changed its name to "Song Yuzu Juice". And this name change is more like the beginning of Yuzu Xianggu's telling more stories around the "double pomelo (YUZU pomelo and pomelo)" industry.
Source: Yuzu Valley
Ms. Han Xiufeng, General Manager of Yuzu Xianggu, said in an interview with food commentators during the FBIF2023 Food and Beverage Innovation Forum: "Last year we made more than 400 million, this year we are expected to exceed 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 ”
Han Xiufeng, General Manager of Yuzu Valley (Source: FBIF2023 Food and Beverage Innovation Forum)
Obviously, the "overnight explosion" of Yuzu Xianggu has a clearer and more ambitious goal, and in the face of new market challenges, whether Yuzu Xianggu can replicate the success of the Zhejiang market to more regional markets across the country will become the key to whether it can achieve its goal and continue its popularity.
Planting trees: both a foundation and a barrier
From the perspective of the domestic beverage market, Yuzu Xianggu is still a "new recruit". Regarding the current success of Yuzu Xianggu, Han Xiufeng unabashedly said: "Yuzu Xianggu has done a lot of things that others are unwilling to do, and has also suffered a lot of hardships that others are unwilling to eat. ”
And reviewing the development history of Yuzu Xianggu, we can understand Han Xiufeng's words more thoroughly, because everything in Yuzuxiang Valley starts from "planting trees".
Source: Yuzu Valley
"Planting trees for 8 years" is the story that Yuzu Valley tells the most to the outside world. As early as 2015, Song Wei, the founder of Yuzu Valley, introduced YUZU pomelo from China to Japan during the Tang and Song Dynasties, and worked hard in the base in Changshan, Zhejiang for 8 years, and finally realized the cultivation of 13,000 mu of YUZU pomelo.
And "double pomelo juice" has also become the first "explosive product" of Yuzu Valley. In November 2019, Yuzu Xianggu's first product "Double Pomelo Juice" was developed and launched. In 2021, after two upgrades of brand packaging and taste formulas, "double pomelo juice" quickly became popular in the market after it was launched. By the end of 2022, in just one and a half years, "Double Pomelo Juice" had sold a total of 100 million bottles.
In the face of more and more similar products on the market, Yuzu Valley has also begun to deliberately get rid of the impact of these following products. On the one hand, it is to rename "double pomelo juice" to "song pomelo juice", and on the other hand, it is to hit the cyclical barriers brought by its own "planting trees" here, and "throw off" competitors from the quality.
Therefore, for many competitors to follow, Han Xiufeng does not seem to mind too much.
In Han Xiufeng's view, there are three elements of a good product, one is that consumers provide a good core experience, and the premise is to do a good job in taste and taste; The second is to make consumers feel that their products are worth the money, including emotional value, functional value and even social value; The third is supply chain and technology, only a strong supply chain can help brands make a moat.
What sets Yuzu Valley's "double pomelo juice" apart from other brands is the addition of YUZU pomelo. In Han Xiufeng's view, this is also the biggest product barrier in Yuzu Valley. However, this also leads to the price of Yuzu Valley's products being higher than other products of the same type.
"Yuzu Valley's double pomelo juice may be called an 'Internet celebrity' in 2021, but 2022 depends on brand and word of mouth. Although our products are more expensive than competitors, consumers can intuitively feel the significant difference between the two as soon as they drink it. Han Xiufeng said that today's consumers are not as concerned about the price difference between the same type of products as everyone thinks, but more concerned about the hidden cost of taste, appearance, ingredients and ingredients.
Relying on "planting trees", the "sense of security" brought to Yuzu Valley is becoming more and more sufficient. "Because I'm scarce, it's extremely difficult to be replaced, and it's unlikely that someone will replace me in the last 5-6 years, because he has to start by planting trees." And we are the largest and best brand in China to have this fast industry, which is also our greatest confidence. ”
Source: Yuzu Valley
Han Xiufeng said: "At present, through its own seedling technology, Yuzu Xianggu can further shorten the cycle of YUZU pomelo from transplanting and planting to hanging fruit from the conventional 6 years to 3 years. In the future, the planting area of YUZU Xiangyu in Yuzu Valley will continue to increase at the level of 10,000 mu per year, and in addition to Zhejiang, Yuzu Valley has opened up new planting bases in the southwest region, thereby consolidating its absolute position at the raw material level. ”
In addition to beverage products, Yuzu Valley's personal care, cultural tourism industry and other products are all around "planting trees", so it is not an exaggeration to say that "planting trees is both a foundation and a barrier for Yuzu Valley".
Channel: Continuous penetration from catering to circulation
Consumers familiar with Yuzu Valley must know that in addition to being able to see Yuzu Valley in some KA hypermarkets, more products that can be exposed to Yuzu Valley are mainly in some catering consumption scenarios. Because the "popularity" of Yuzu Valley began with the catering channel.
Source: Yuzu Valley
Returning to the traditional beverage market, the catering channel is only one of the consumption channels of beverages, and the proportion is not as large as the circulation market, so if Yuzu Xianggu wants to go further, continuous penetration into the circulation market has also become the key to its development.
When it comes to why Yuzu Xianggu chose to use catering channels as a breakthrough, Han Xiufeng did not shy away from saying: "Because I stepped on the 'pit', Yuzu Xianggu couldn't sell in the circulation market at that time. ”
It is not difficult to understand that as a new beverage brand, not only consumer awareness is limited, but distributors are also taking a wait-and-see attitude towards the sustainability of Yuzu Valley. Therefore, Yuzu Xianggu had to change its direction and find consumption channels that were more in line with its own products, and catering was undoubtedly the best solution.
In Han Xiufeng's view, in the catering channel, all products are drunk by consumers, but in the distribution channel, it may be on the shelves, warehouses... Catering channels cannot be stockpiled like dozens or hundreds or even more of distribution channels, and for each catering terminal, the space for consumers to choose is more limited than that of circulation terminals, so the probability that catering channels can reach consumers has become higher.
More importantly, the innate degreasing function of Yuzu Valley's "double pomelo juice" has a natural adaptability to catering channels. Han Xiufeng said that the drinks in the catering channel are nothing more than several large categories such as carbonic acid, fruit juice, and protein drinks, but double pomelo juice can meet the consumption of meals without bringing more burden to consumers, such as satiety, high sugar and so on.
According to Han Xiufeng, in 2022, more than 70% of Yuzu Xianggu will come from catering channels. In her view, although the catering channel is an important channel in the beverage market, the overall contribution will not exceed 40%. Therefore, continuous penetration into the circulation market has also become the key to the future channel development of Yuzu Valley.
As for distribution channels, Yuzu Valley divides the market into three categories: mature area, development area and blank area. At present, the sales volume of Yuzu Xianggu from catering and circulation in mature areas can basically reach five or five, and the circulation channels in individual regions have exceeded the catering channels. According to Han Xiufeng, due to the popularity of Yuzu Xianggu in the catering market, many large terminals have also begun to take the initiative to ask Yuzu Xianggu to enter the market.
Entering the circulation market, Han Xiufeng said that Yuzu Xianggu is different from other brands, and it is more concerned about whether the product can be drunk by consumers, so that the product can first form a good reputation among consumers.
Han Xiufeng revealed that in the circulation market, the core competitiveness of Yuzu Xianggu lies in having three key capabilities. First, the inevitable product power; Second, sufficient profitability; The third is the ability to help customers open up channels. On the one hand, if the product has no product power, it has no vitality and thickness, and it is easy to "see the light and die"; Only with sufficient profitability can channel providers and enterprises work together to do a good job in the market; In addition, only by helping customers constantly open up new channel outlets and making dealers bigger and stronger, can enterprises maintain steady growth in the fierce market competition.
The success of Yuzu Xianggu in the catering market has also provided valuable experience for its expansion of the circulation market. Han Xiufeng said that most of the dealers currently cooperating with Yuzu Xianggu are among the top local merchants, and Yuzu Xianggu has also helped many dealers open up new retail outlets.
Previously, most of the distributors in Yuxiang Valley were mainly catering channels, and through Yuzu Xianggu, the outlets of these dealers gradually extended to special channels such as tobacco hotels and Internet cafes. Moreover, Yuzu Valley's KA channel is supplied by these distributors, which further enhances the market breadth of distributors and deepens the foundation of cooperation between the two.
Product: Beverage is just the beginning, to build a whole industry chain brand
According to Han Xiufeng, "At present, Yuzu Xianggu has entered the stage of listing counseling, and hopes to formally submit an application for A-share listing within the following year. ”
Source: Yuzu Valley
Yuzu Valley is not only a drink as understood by the outside world, in Yuzu Valley, has always been "everything can be pomelo" as the goal, around the YUZU pomelo industry, peels, fruit juices, essential oils, fruit seeds for high value-added deep processing, and together with the planting base, to form a good situation of coordinated development of industry + cultural tourism.
However, the beverage industry is still the most important industry in Yuzu Valley. According to Han Xiufeng, in Japan, 70% of the output of the YUZU pomelo industry comes from beverages, which is why Yuzu Valley chose to start with beverages. The remaining 30% comes from the roasting, seasoning, daily chemical personal care and tourism industries that rely on the YUZU pomelo industry to extend downstream. "In China, the beverage track itself is large enough, so Yuzu Valley can bring more possibilities to the industry."
Han Xiufeng said that the current production capacity of the entire Yuzuxiang Valley is about 20 million boxes, of which more than 15 million boxes can be digested in the core Zhejiang market, while the surrounding market can only be allocated about 5 million boxes. Moreover, at present, the products of Yuxiang Valley are in a state of insufficient overall division, so they are also increasing the layout of new production capacity construction.
Source: Yuzu Valley
With the new production capacity investment, the supply capacity of Yuzu Valley at the market level will be further improved, and the scale of the enterprise is also expected to reach a new level.
However, compared with market development, Han Xiufeng wants to build a better "team" in Yuzu Valley. "Last year, we only had 12 salespeople and completed 400 million sales."
With the continuous expansion of the beverage market and the improvement of other businesses, further expanding the sales force is also a problem to be solved by Yuzu Xianggu. In this regard, Han Xiufeng said that in the future, Yuzu Valley will match the corresponding sales system according to its own market layout, and will definitely build a team before listing to match the future development needs of the enterprise.
As for the future growth momentum of the company, Han Xiufeng said that in the customer system of Yuxiang Valley, some catering terminals can reach four or five hundred boxes per store per month, so there is still room for improvement in the catering market in the entire Zhejiang region. In addition, household consumption and the Waifu market will also become a new growth point for Yuzu Valley.
"Relying on the original users accumulated by the beverage industry, it has also laid a user base for other categories of Yuzu Valley, and there is still a lot of room for development in the future."
Yuzu Xianggu, as an enterprise integrating three industries and focusing on the whole industrial link of "pomelo", has more new space in creating characteristic industries. In the future, we look forward to how Yuzu Valley will perform.
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