Author: Pan Xian (original)
When the ice cream war is in full swing, Nestle has released a wave of new "ammunition".
At the recent Nestle Ice Cream New Product Exchange Conference, Xiaoshidai learned that the company has launched nearly 20 new products this year, covering multiple product forms such as cones, sticks, glutinous rice balls, and small pieces. As the market competition heats up, the number of new Nestle ice cream products this year has also doubled compared to last year.
Jiang Haiying
It is worth noting that Nestlé Ice Cream has also found a new "teammate" this year. Jiang Haiying, senior vice president of Nestlé Greater China and head of the confectionery and ice cream business unit, said that Nestlé China obtained the authorization of the Oreo brand this year to produce and sell Oreo ice cream in the Chinese mainland market.
Xiaoshidai introduced that at the 2024 new product launch conference for domestic distributors a few months ago, Nestle displayed "Oreo ice cream". In the first quarter of this year, new products began to be distributed one after another.
According to Jiang Haiying, Nestlé's first Oreo ice cream is three classic products, including cones, cups, and family sharing buckets, which are suitable for different consumption scenarios and aim to "bring consumers a pleasant and exquisite ice cream experience".
At present, Oreo ice cream has been listed in e-commerce, convenience stores, O2O and other channels, with the suggested retail prices of cones, cups and barrels being 9 yuan, 15 yuan and 29.9 yuan respectively, positioning as a relatively high-end product, and the target group is 6~12 years old families with babies and 18~30 years old young people.
Although Nestlé China only started selling Oreo ice cream this year, the product is no stranger to many Chinese consumers. In addition to related products from McDonald's, KFC and other catering businesses, Oreo cookie crumbs are also a common ingredient in homemade ice cream.
Before Nestlé China operated Oreo ice cream, there were also a small number of third-party merchants on e-commerce to import and sell products. Taking 750ml barrels as an example, the unit price is about 60~70 yuan, which is a cut higher than Nestle's pricing. It is worth noting that some of the above-mentioned imported products also have the brand logo of Nestlé Ice Cream on the product page.
In fact, these Nestlé products are imported from markets where both parties have become "ice cream partners". Xiaoshidai learned that Oreo ice cream is available in many markets around the world. In some Southeast Asian regions, Oreo ice cream is produced and sold by Nestlé, including Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia.
Oreo ice cream
In the Chinese mainland market, the two sides have followed this cooperation model of Mondelēz authorized brand and Nestlé responsible for production and sales. This not only brings a high-profile brand to Nestlé China Ice Cream as a new "weapon", but also satisfies Oreo's need to explore cross-category opportunities in China, its second largest market, and seek growth through a blank market.
Zhu Yijing, vice president of marketing and development at Mondelēz Greater China, once told Xiaoshidai that combined with Oreo's perception of "twisting, licking, and soaking", milk is the brand's natural CP, so milk-containing drinks including milk tea, fancy coffee, etc., and even soft serve ice cream, are particularly suitable for Oreo as an extension of the product experience.
Specific to ice cream, Oreo will sell it "single-handedly" by finding OEM on its own in 2022, but only "testing the waters" on a small scale. Mondelēz China said at the time that Oreo had "extremely high penetration and a deep consumer base" in China, and believed there were huge business opportunities in multiple categories, including ice cream.
After this exploration, Oreo has now chosen to join forces with Nestlé to capture the ice cream opportunity in China, which may also refer to the experience of other markets. For Oreo, Nestlé's production capacity and channel network can enable it to press the accelerator button to open up the ice cream business, and at the same time share the dividends in a more "light-packed" way.
Xiaoshidai learned that after the first launch this year, Nestle China has planned a number of new Oreo ice cream products for the future, including not only some sandwich ice cream and stick products that have been marketed abroad, but also the concept of combining Nestle's ice cream products, such as the Oreo version of "8 power".
In addition to the new Oreo ice cream, Nestlé has also brought a lot of "new faces" to its product lines this year. Jiang Haiying mentioned that Nestle ice cream has four innovation directions this year: real materials, desserts, high-end and fun.
Taking desserts as an example, Nestlé Snow Cake has two trendy dessert flavors, new dirty milk and poplar nectar, with the steaming process of glutinous rice skin and the addition of imported cocoa powder, imported Alfonso mango puree and other raw materials as the core selling point. In addition, in terms of high-end, Nestle Mojue has achieved a new and upgraded product, launching two 70% cocoa black chocolate crispy sticks, Black Qiao Caramel Cookies and Black Qiao Brownie Double Berry.
Xiaoshidai noticed that Nestle, which has a multi-price band layout, is increasing the size of 3~5 yuan this year, including the launch of dessert flavor snow cake, two new flavors of "Flying Fish Crispy", and the three classic flavors of the "Flower Heart Tube" series are packaged and renewed. According to the data displayed by Nestle at the event, in the ice cream market, products below 5 yuan accounted for about 50%, and 3~5 yuan products grew rapidly, with an increase of 12%.
"This year, the mainstream will be 3-5 yuan ice cream, and all retail partners will carefully choose products above 10 yuan." A person with senior sales experience in large ice cream companies judged that 3-5 yuan ice cream will enter a state of "white-hot competition" this year.