Reporter | Wu Rong
Edited by | Zan Huifang
Yuanqi Forest, which started with sugar-free sparkling water, is dabbling in more new categories. Its latest entries are the ambient lactic acid bacteria and soy milk track.
Yuanqi Forest recently launched two new products, namely "Countermeasures Room Temperature Lactic Acid Bacteria Drink" and "Yuanqi Breakfast Soy Milk". In addition to the former with "0 sugar, 0 fat, bifidobacteria lacta, dietary fiber" as the selling point, the former said to meet the "refreshing taste to meet young consumers"; Yuanqi breakfast soy milk is also playing the health card.
At present, the two products are available in the Yuanqi Forest Tmall flagship store, and the pricing is not cheap. The pre-sale price of Yuanqi breakfast soy milk is 119.9 yuan / 18 boxes, and the pre-sale price of the countermeasure room temperature lactic acid bacteria drink is 79.9 yuan / 6 bottles.
Founded in 2016, Yuanqi Forest is now the head brand of the sparkling water track, and just completed a new round of financing in April this year, with a valuation of $6 billion. The company's sales reached 3 billion yuan in 2020 and the target for 2021 is 7.5 billion yuan.
As the sparkling water market becomes increasingly crowded, this category also seems to have a conundrum to provide more room for imagination. For sustainable development, Yuanqi Forest needs to enrich its product line, find a single product that can support its growth needs together with sparkling water, and even fill the gap after sparkling water does not have an advantage. This is also the main reason why it has continued to promote new innovations recently.
Interface News noted that in addition to the above two new products, Yuanqi Forest also launched new products such as ambient yogurt "Beihai Ranch LP28", alien energy bomb energy drink, green pan-fried sugar-free tea, roasted sugar-free oolong tea and so on this year.
In December 2020, Tang Binsen, founder of Yuanqi Forest, predicted that 2021 will be the "product year" of Yuanqi Forest, and 95% of Yuanqi Forest's products have not been launched, and the research and development costs and R&D personnel investment will reach 3 times that of 2020.
According to the Tianyancha APP, Yuanqi Forest has added trademarks such as "Wine Forest" and "Daily Fruit and Vegetables", and there are currently 2657 trademarks in the registration application, which are likely to be prepared for this year's new products.
In fact, from an earlier point of view, Yuanqi Forest has been more frequent in expanding investment in categories, involving coffee, beer and light food fast food.
Interface News reported that at the end of 2020, Yuanqi Forest first invested in Hangzhou Light Food Science and Technology Co., Ltd., which produces light food and low-fat food, and launched chicken breast sausage products; in January this year, its investment focus was still on catering, participating in a simple food brand called "Mountain Ghost", mainly engaged in chicken soup, ramen and other products; in February, Yuanqi Forest entered the Internet celebrity ready-to-drink coffee brand Never Coffee; in March, it also involved in the beer industry and became the third largest shareholder of Bishan Beer.
Founder Tang Binsen has also invested in new companies with great potential in new consumption areas such as Ramen Talk, Good Hope Water, and Panda Craft Brewing through Challenger Capital.
Yuanqi Forest is obviously exploring new trends among young consumers, trying to cultivate the next big single or even blockbuster in addition to sugar-free sparkling water by investing in various new companies.
From the perspective of development and investment logic, this is also related to the Internet thinking of Yuanqi Forest and the tendency of "fast fashion" in the consumer industry.
Specifically, it is to collect a large amount of consumer feedback from the Internet and other channels, keep up with the hot spots of taste, shorten the time from research and development to the street, thereby increasing the frequency of consumption, and also use the market to quickly draw conclusions and carry out survival of the fittest. In recent years, the relatively mature supply chain, logistics, talent and other infrastructure in the Chinese market have also provided certain conditions for the rapid upgrading of products.
Investing in upstream and downstream and constantly expanding new categories also highlights yuanqi forest's goal of becoming a beverage giant with multiple large products like Nongfu Spring. Its high valuation of nearly 38.6 billion yuan now also needs a rich product line to support.
However, all these new product layouts and development goals must be based on the premise that the main business of Yuanqi Forest is sufficiently stable. Considering the cultivation cycle, consumer education and other issues, in the diversified layout, if the side business does not reach a certain scale, if the main business is not strong enough, the front line is too long, it will pose a challenge to the resources and capital situation of the entire company.
Nowadays, the number of players in the sugar-free sparkling water category that Yuanqi Forest is mainly attacking is increasing, and you can see from the convenience store beverage freezer that both Coca-Cola, Unification, Nongfu Spring, etc. have entered the game, and the price ranges from 3.5 yuan to 6 yuan. In addition to the big brands, you can also see the figure of the entrant who imitates the style of the Yuanqi Forest.