Following the "plant meat" fire, the capital market has ushered in a boom in "plant milk". Recently, Swedish oat milk company Oatly filed a prospectus with the SEC in the United States, and the valuation has exceeded 10 billion US dollars. In the past one or two years, plant milk, including oat milk, soy milk, etc., has become a "dark horse" in the beverage market, and dairy head enterprises such as Mengniu, Yili and Vitasoy have entered the market, and start-up brands have begun to mushroom. Will the emerging category of plant milk become the next outlet in the beverage market?
Head enterprises sprint to the capital market
Since last year, many Starbucks regular customers have noticed that there are more and more products with the label of "oat milk" such as oat lattes and oatmeal macchiato on the menu. Is "oat milk" milk? Is "plant milk" delicious? While many consumers are skeptical, the concept of plant-based milk has clearly gained popularity.
Up to now, Starbucks has launched 8 oat milk products, and sales data show that in 2020, the sales of oat coffee will reach 62 million cups.
In addition to Starbucks, coffee and tea shops such as Seesaw, MANNER, Luckin, and Heytea have all begun to include oatmeal coffee in their regular menus, becoming a new choice for "milk coffee" consumption for many lactose intolerant and vegetarian populations. As the supplier behind these plant milk drinks, Oatly, the head brand of oat-based drinks, also quickly knocked on the door of the capital market.
On April 19, Swedish oat milk brand Oatly filed a prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to list on the NASDAQ under the stock code "OTLY", with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Credit Suisse as its listing underwriters, with a valuation of nearly $10 billion.
According to the data, by the end of 2020, Oatly has entered more than 20 markets around the world, providing dozens of product categories for 60,000 retail stores and 32,000 coffee shops, with total revenue of $421 million in 2020. In less than two years of entering the Chinese market, Oatly has covered more than 9,500 food service and retail outlets, with a growth rate of more than 450%.
Optimistic about the huge potential of the plant-based milk market, the investment lineup behind Oatly is also luxurious. In addition to well-known institutions such as Blackstone Group, China Resources Group, and Belgian private equity fund Verlinvest, celebrities such as Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, famous talk show host Oprah, actress Natalie Portman and rapper Jay-Z have also become followers of Oatly.
Dairy giants rushed to the track
Oatly's go-to-market sprint is just a microcosm of the industry's rapid growth. In fact, in the past six months, plant milk has blossomed everywhere in the upstream and downstream industrial chains.
At the beginning of 2020, European dairy giant Aishi Chenxi launched the oat milk brand JR, officially entering the plant milk market; in May 2020, Danone's plant-based brand VEGA ONE officially landed in the Chinese market; in September 2020, Vitasoy launched two new dual plant protein products. Domestic dairy giant Mengniu founded a joint venture sub-brand Silk Plant Mill as early as 2014 to enter the plant-based beverage market; in 2017, Yili launched plant protein drinks for the first time and continued to deploy in this field.
Yangyuan Beverage, which started with "walnut dew", in the face of the continuous decline in revenue and net profit in the past two years, also regards the expansion of plant milk categories as a "life-saving straw". According to Yangyuan Beverage, the company will launch the second largest strategic single product in addition to "six walnuts" this year.
In addition to the continuous increase of dairy giants, start-ups are also gearing up. Since last year, plant-based protein beverage startup brands such as Wheat Oye, Oatoat, Daily Box, and Omar Planet have all received financing; at the same time, many coffee and beverage restaurants and restaurants are also actively introducing oat milk to their menus. In March 2021, the European cuisine restaurant TIAGO announced the launch of a variety of new oat milk products in cooperation with Oatly; in the same month, Luckin Coffee officially announced the launch of oat lattes, which will be successively landed in stores nationwide.
In the view of zhu Danpeng, an analyst in the food industry, China's dairy industry competition has entered a hand-to-hand battle, and major dairy companies are also carrying out a more accurate layout in the subdivision track. The plant milk market itself has a very large space for development, and the increasingly crowded track has brought more capital attention to the plant milk market, and the competition for plant milk will also begin to enter a reshuffle period.
It's too early for the plant-based milk market to explode
In the past two years, the heat of the plant meat market has made healthy, environmentally friendly and sustainable plant-based foods widely concerned by the capital and consumer markets, and plant milk has gradually begun to be favored by the market. In fact, plant milk is a plant protein drink, in the past common soy milk, almond dew, walnut dew, etc. can be classified as plant milk; now, including oats, quinoa and other cereals are also made into drinks, plant milk territory has further expanded.
Due to its low calorie, low fat, high dietary fiber, no cholesterol and other nutritional characteristics, plant milk, including oat milk, almond milk, etc., is regarded by nutritionists as the best substitute for milk; the variety of raw materials and taste are rich and diverse, and also provide consumers with more choices and experiences.
Tmall data shows that in 2020, the growth rate of China's plant protein beverage market will be as high as 800%, the number of buyers will rise by 900%, and the growth contribution in the beverage market will be 15.5%, ranking third. The analysis report released by the Prospective Industry Research Institute shows that the average annual growth rate of China's plant milk industry is expected to remain above 20% in the next few years, and it is expected that the market size of plant milk will exceed 300 billion yuan in 2025.
However, although it is quite popular in the capital market, the current market share of plant protein drinks accounts for only 7% of the soft drink market; due to the generally high price compared with pure milk, plant milk is still only the choice of a niche group in the consumer market. In the eyes of industry insiders, the current plant milk market is in a period of establishing category cognition and cultivating consumption habits, and it is still too early to talk about the outbreak of the market.
Source Beijing Daily | Intern reporter Yang Tianyue
Edited by Wang Qiong
Process Editor Liu Weili