It's the spring tea season of another year, and the beverage giants are busy with new products. Recently, Nestlé Tea has launched two seasonal products, "Narcissus Oolong" and "Jasmine Tea", which are the first sugar-free teas. Since February, Dongpeng Beverage, Master Kong, Wahaha, Suntory, etc. have also launched new sugar-free tea drinks, rolling up to functionality in product descriptions.
According to Nielsen IQ data, the volume of sugar-free tea will double in 2023, which is higher than the overall growth rate of the beverage industry and the growth rate of the ready-to-drink tea category in which it is located (the overall growth rate of beverages is 6%, ready-to-drink tea is 19%, and sugar-free tea has reached 110%).
Industry analysts pointed out that in the melee of giants, problems such as product homogenization and lack of innovation in the sugar-free tea market are still prominent, and most brands are still rolling in the origin, tea, and technology, and functionality may become the key to the giants' next step to break through the boundary of "water replacement".
Entering April, as the temperature warms up, the tea market undercurrent surges. On April 2, Nestle Tea announced the launch of its first sugar-free tea "Narcissus Oolong" and "Jasmine Tea" on its official Weibo, claiming that "only the first tea soup is extracted", "100% selected from the tea leaves of the famous tea producing area, went to Wuyi Mountain, Fujian, Hengzhou, Guangxi", "Sugar, fat, energy, flavors, preservatives, these are not available." What's more, 0 tea powder".
Nestlé Tea is not a new brand, it entered the Chinese market in the last century as "Nestlé Iced Tea", but it gradually faded out until 2020, and its products are positioned as bottled ready-to-drink juice teas, including peach clear oolong, lemon jelly black tea, passion fruit green tea, etc.
A reporter from Beijing Business Daily noticed that the current producer of Nestle tea extract is Xiamen Yinlu Food Group Co., Ltd., and related products are sold in Yinlu Tmall flagship store, and there are also some third-party stores selling Nestle tea products. Regarding the statement that Nestle tea is operated by Yinlu, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily was confirmed by the relevant person in charge of Nestle.
In addition to Nestle tea, since February, beverage giants such as Dongpeng Beverage, Master Kong, Wahaha, and Suntory have also made frequent moves in the sugar-free tea sector. Dongpeng Beverage has launched two new flavors, "Pu'er Tea" and "Jasmine Tea", of which "Pu'er Tea" adopts a unique formula of alpine Pu'er and special Hangzhou white chrysanthemum; Master Kong has continuously launched new sugar-free jasmine tea, sugar-free and low-sugar oolong tea, and put forward a new standard for the display of sugar-free tea in the terminal freezer, requiring terminal merchants to list the sugar-free tea area in a prime position; Wahaha has launched Jasmine Tea, Zhengshan Small Seed, The four flavors of Dahongpao and Qingtang Pu'er are the first sugar-free tea drinks, and Suntory has also launched new products such as "Barley Tea" and "Osmanthus Oolong".
With the intensification of competition in the sugar-free tea industry, various brands have also changed from the origin and variety of the volume to the current volume function.
For example, Nestle Tea's new sugar-free products, on the basis of emphasizing the selling points of Narcissus Oolong using the name tea of Wuyi Mountain in Fujian Province and jasmine tea using the name tea of Hengzhou origin in Guangxi, etc., play the characteristics of 0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 energy, 0 tea powder, 0 flavor and 0 preservatives; In the claim, it also emphasizes 0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 energy, the formula is simple and healthier.
As a giant of cross-border tea drinks from functional drinks, Dongpeng Beverage has promoted products to roll processes. In the third quarter of 2023, Dongpeng Beverage launched the first sugar-free tea "Oolong Shangcha" in the "Pengyou Shangcha" series. On April 1 this year, Dongpeng Beverage announced that it had reached cooperation with Zhejiang Amakusa Biotechnology Co., Ltd. and the State Key Laboratory of Tea Biology and Resource Utilization of Anhui Agricultural University to jointly build a joint research center for tea deep processing and beverage development. Dongpeng Beverage said that it will carry out basic research on tea raw materials around the distribution of tea raw materials, quality stability, processing technology and the development process of related tea beverage products.
Zhan Junhao, a well-known strategic positioning expert and founder of Fujian Great Aim Brand Positioning Consulting, said, "The functionalization of tea drinks is indeed an obvious trend. With the diversification of consumer needs and the improvement of health awareness, functional tea products can meet consumers' multiple pursuits for health, deliciousness and convenience."
"On the one hand, tea brands need to continue to focus on the health needs of consumers and launch more low-sugar, sugar-free and nutrient-rich tea products, and on the other hand, tea brands need to continue to innovate and develop more novel and interesting flavors and formulas to attract consumers' attention."
Water is the money printing machine, and sugar-free tea is undoubtedly the hottest outlet in the water industry at present. At the same time that giants are grabbing food, the homogenization of domestic tea drinks is serious, and Oriental Leaves and Suntory have created tens of billions of large single products due to their earlier layout to occupy the channel advantage.
According to the report of the offline retail monitoring network Win Now, from 2022 to 2023, the top 6 sugar-free ready-to-drink teas will be relatively stable, and the ranking will basically remain unchanged. Among them, Nongfu Spring and Suntory have an absolute advantage over the market share of other brands. At the same time, the gap in market share between Nongfu Spring and Suntory, the two leading brands in the sugar-free ready-to-drink tea market, is also very significant.
According to the 2023 annual financial report released by Nongfu Spring, the revenue of tea beverage products was 12.659 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 83.3%, accounting for 29.7% of the total revenue in 2023, becoming the second major category of Nongfu Spring with revenue exceeding 10 billion yuan. Nongfu Spring's tea segment includes two brands, Oriental Leaf and Tea π, and the specific income of the two brands was not disclosed in the financial report, of which Oriental Leaf is a sugar-free tea brand.
According to Suntory's results for the first half of 2023, revenue for the period was 1.547 trillion yen, up 12.7% year-on-year, operating profit was 167.7 billion yen, up 11.3% year-on-year, and profit attributable to owners of the parent company was 86 billion yen, up 16.3% year-on-year. Sugar-free teas, including "clear tea", account for nearly eighty percent of the company's sales.
Focusing on domestic brands, in the past 7 years, judging from the annual sales performance of Master Kong, Uni-President and Nongfu Spring in the tea sector, Nongfu Spring has come from behind, with the rapid development of the two major products of Oriental Leaves and Tea π, Master Kong has grown steadily, achieving a leap from 15 billion to 20 billion, and Uni-President Group (excluding milk tea) has been hovering around 6 billion yuan in revenue for five consecutive years until it exceeds nearly 7 billion yuan in 2022.
In the view of Lin Xianping, secretary-general of the Institute of Culture and Creativity of Zhejiang University City College, the homogenization of tea beverages is more serious, first of all, it is necessary to continuously explore new tea varieties and processing techniques to obtain a more unique taste and aroma; secondly, it is necessary to strengthen cooperation with scientific research institutions to study the nutritional composition and efficacy of tea, so as to develop more healthy and functional tea products; finally, it is necessary to pay attention to brand building and marketing strategies, through continuous innovation and improvement of products, improve brand awareness and reputation, and attract more consumers。
Zhan Junhao believes that with the improvement of consumers' health awareness, the demand for sugar-free and healthy tea drinks is growing, which provides a broad space for the development of the tea market. At the same time, the innovation and diversity of the tea market also provide new growth points for beverage giants. Through cross-border tea drinks, beverage giants can further expand their product lines to meet the diversified needs of consumers and enhance market competitiveness.
Beijing Business Daily reporter |
Edited by Topol