On October 15, Heytea launched two new bottled products in both stores and e-commerce channels, Qing Tyranny Lemon Green Yan, Strong Riot Lemon - Lemon Cantonese Red, offline FamilyMart, 711 and other convenience store channels have also been on the shelves, as soon as it was listed, it received a wave of media and kol attention.
In fact, the popularity of lemon tea has begun at the beginning of this year. Originally popular in the two Guangdong area of hand-played lemon tea, favored by consumers and capital, not only the birth of new brands, the expansion of the number of offline stores, new tea brands have also launched new lemon tea products, such as Xi Tea launched in May this year 4 super-burning lemon tea drinks, the first day on the line sold nearly 400,000 cups.
The head tea brand is new in the products of stores across the country, which has boosted the explosion of lemon tea categories. Therefore, in the spring and summer of 2021, lemon tea went all the way from Guangzhou to Beijing and stepped onto the c position of the beverage industry.
The bottled lime tea recently launched by Xi Tea not only continued the heat of this summer, boosted the category out of the circle, but also led the hand flavor to step into the market of ready-to-drink lemon tea. In this field, in addition to the traditional taste derived from Hong Kong-style tea restaurants, various competitors have not yet decided.
To make bottled lemon tea, the idea of Xicha is very clear - the two new bottles of Qing Tyrant Lemon and Thick Tyranny Lemon are from the freshly made drink Lemon Lemon family. Injecting inspiration from freshly made drinks into the bottle makes sense for Hey Tea.
In fact, the "put tea in the bottle" thing, Xicha has been doing for more than a year. After the lime tea, the new doubleberry Yan red juice tea corresponds to the store's ready-made drink Zhizhi Berry.
So far, Heytea has launched a total of 6 sparkling water, 3 juice teas, 1 light milk tea and 2 kinds of lime tea, forming 4 categories of layout.
However, it can be seen from the rhythm and number of product launches that the Heytea bottle business did not take many steps at the beginning, and each step was quite cautious. In the process of expanding the boundaries of the business with ready-made drinks as the core, how much room does the bottled business of Heytea have?
Although they are all drinks, but the ready-made and bottled are actually in two different tracks, Heytea from the new tea cross-border into the retail field, in fact, is the result of market opportunities and their own demand dual drive.
From the market level, young people are the main group of beverage consumption, according to the "2021 z generation food and beverage consumption insight report" jointly released by Bilibili Insight and Nielsen iq, in the total number of about 260 million generation Z, heavy beverage consumers accounted for 93%, they have high acceptance of emerging categories such as ready-made tea, sparkling water, etc., and are more willing to taste fresh, and prefer low-fat, low-sugar and low-calorie health drinks.
Driven by the new consumer trend, the bottled beverage market, which has been in a solidified pattern for a long time, has begun to be impacted by new brands and new categories, and the demand of young people to optimize product forms objectively stirs the market and also provides opportunities for new entrants.
For Xicha, entering the bottled retail field can not only expand the business boundary with the help of product and brand advantages, but also reach more people through offline convenience stores, supermarkets and e-commerce channels, bottled beverages are more convenient and easy to obtain than cups of ready-made drinks, and can also cover more scenes, thereby improving the frequency of consumption and user stickiness, complementing the ready-made tea business.
From the past, Heytea has been involved in the bottled business this year, and it has been quite cautious. This cautious attitude is reflected in the category selection of bottled products and the rhythm of product launch.
In 2019, Heytea began to prepare for the bottled beverage business and chose sparkling water as the entry point. After choosing the direction, Heytea did not rush to push the new, until July 2020, only launched 3 sparkling water products, the taste inspired by the store's classic products succulent grapes, full cup of red grapefruit, Zhizhi peach peach. However, soon after, Heytea decided to recreate these three products, and in October 2020, it launched three sparkling water products with new packaging and flavors, still covering grape, peach and grapefruit, but more prominently emphasizing the aroma of fruit.
Since then, Heytea sparkling aquatic products have been iterating and polishing, and gradually found their own ideas, and finally formed the current matrix of 6 sparkling aquatic products. It can be seen that on top of the existing characteristics of sparkling water with zero sugar and zero fat and zero calorie, Heytea not only strengthens the original cognition of "health" of sparkling water by adding elements such as lactic acid bacteria, dietary fiber, and real juice, but also realizes a differentiated distinction.
Juice tea is the second category of tea bottle selection after sparkling water, and it is also a choice made after comprehensively considering the external market and its own advantages, and the online rhythm is similar. Since establishing its entry into juice tea products in 2020, Heetea has been engaged in research and development and polishing products, and it was not until June 2021 that it launched two juice tea drinks for the first time, the Mediterranean Myrtle Golden Phoenix and the Iberi Grapefruit Green Leaf, corresponding to the ready-made drinks Zhizhi Peach peach and full cup red grapefruit respectively.
Unlike most bottled fruity tea/juice tea beverages on the market, the juice content of Heytea juice tea reaches 50% of the industry's pioneering, which is 10 times the national standard, and the "tea" part uses Heytea classic tea base extraction tea soup. The upgrading of product formulas has put forward higher requirements for juice pressing technology and tea soup extraction process. The final "half juice and half tea" not only fits the concept of health, but also reaches a new height in taste and flavor.
Light milk tea is the third category launched by Heytea. In September this year, Heytea launched the first and so far only light milk tea bottled beverage - Jasmine Green Yan Light Milk Tea, corresponding to the popular hidden menu known as "Hey Tea White Moonlight" - "Green Yan + Cow Milk Tea Base".
In terms of raw material selection and ingredient addition, Heytea's light milk tea focuses on the "light" experience of low sugar and low fat, while the overall protein content reaches more than 3.6 times the national standard, and pioneers the addition of collagen peptide ingredients.
From the perspective of long-term development, sparkling water is the entry point of the heytea bottled business, while juice tea, light milk tea, and lime tea are the focus of the follow-up of heytea bottled beverages. Bottled products will not only give full play to the research and development advantages of Heytea in the field of ready-made beverages, reflecting the characteristics of Heytea, but also extend the brand potential of Heytea and further strengthen the Heytea brand through the association with ready-made drinks.
After more than a year of market verification, the pace of new bottled products on the line of Heytea has gradually accelerated, and the layout of the bottled business is gradually unfolding. At this time, Xicha, the biggest advantage is in the product and brand, whether these two advantages can be fully injected into the bottled business, determines how far Heytea can go in the bottled beverage market.
On the brand side, Heytea bottled beverages naturally inherit the brand influence of Heytea and attract young people more than traditional drinks. Moreover, most of the products that have been launched in Heytea bottles are derived from the ready-made classic drinks in Heytea stores, which further extends the mind of ready-made drinks to bottled products, so that consumers are more interested in trying.
The brand's strength is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can help Heytea quickly promote bottled products, on the other hand, if the products do not meet user expectations, not only will the bottled business products be short-lived, but also weaken the overall image of the Heytea brand, so the product is the root of the victory. This may also be one of the reasons why Heytea cautiously promoted the bottled business and continued to iterate at the beginning.
Judging from the several bottled products launched at this stage and their market feedback, the product research and development capabilities of Heytea ready-made beverages have been smoothly introduced into the bottled business, so that even if it is based on the inherent categories of the market, Heytea can also make unique product characteristics.
Taking Lime Tea as an example, most of the previous knowledge of the taste of ready-to-drink lemon tea on the market came from the combination of "black tea / other tea bases + yellow lemon slices" in Hong Kong-style tea restaurants, and the ready-made drink "Lime Family" launched by XiCha in May this year is Cantonese flavor, made by "hand-pounding perfume lemon 35 times", with a strong aroma and a slightly astringent taste. It is reported that in order to achieve this flavor in bottled products, the heytea bottle research and development team tested various types of lemon raw materials, and finally selected an "imported variety with a strong aroma", and cooperated with senior perfumers to customize a new generation of natural lemon essential oil raw materials extracted by low temperature extraction technology, which finally made it possible to present a distinct lemon aroma in bottled products, and also completely "made thorough" the taste of Cantonese hand-played lemon tea.
Heytea store ready-made drinks provide a reserve library and inspiration pool for product research and development for bottled drinks, and the introduction of research and development capabilities means that Heytea has the ability to continuously transform ready-made drinks from stores with high popularity + high taste recognition into differentiated new products in the bottled field.
Although the bottled beverage draws on the flavor of fresh drinks, the product characteristics determine that they also need to establish their own characteristics. It can be seen that after several iterations of sparkling water, the new products of Heytea have begun to form their own outstanding core selling points and differentiated value points: sparkling water with "more than zero sugar", juice tea with "half juice and half tea", "light" milk tea with low sugar and low fat and high protein, and tyrannical lemon tea with distinct aroma and slightly astringent taste.
It can be seen that while pursuing the ultimate taste and characteristics, Heytea bottled beverages are also trying to cater to consumers' pursuit of healthy drinks, but it is not easy to achieve the perfect unity of the three.
The research and development of each new category of Heytea bottled beverages takes almost a year, and after more than 100 formulation tests and iterations, each time bringing Heytea-style product innovation to the industry.
And the product is not once and for all on the market.
It is understood that the bottled products follow the same iterative thinking as ready-made drinks, and will continue to adjust and optimize according to user feedback to ensure that the flavor of the product is close to consumer demand to the greatest extent.
The blessing of the Heytea brand, coupled with the existing R & D strength and continuous iteration of R & D ideas to ensure products, has made the Heytea bottle business have a smooth start. At the supply chain end, the early accumulation of Heytea can also be migrated to the bottled business, and with the new acceleration of Heytea bottles, this advantage will greatly shorten the new product launch cycle and provide a guarantee for the next stage of heytea layout.
From the preparation of the bottled business in 2019 to the formation of more than ten different categories of product matrix today, Heytea has been carefully validating and rapidly iterating, and this product first- and steady layout has helped Heytea accumulate experience in the marketing promotion and channel development of the bottled retail business, and also reflects the patience of Heytea for the growth of this new business segment.
After two years of exploration, the new rhythm of Heytea bottled beverages has accelerated significantly, which has made people have more imagination about the next layout of Heytea.
In the history of the development of China's soft drink industry, the emergence of each wave is almost driven by new categories, from carbonated drinks in the early 90s of the last century, to bottled drinking water in the mid-90s, to tea drinks in the late 90s, juice drinks in the early 20th century, functional drinks, and sparkling water drinks that began in 2018, new categories to meet new demand pain points, every time in the seemingly solidified market pattern to open up a new segmentation track, open up a new market space, and then give birth to a new leader.
Under the previous waves, a big trend is that pre-packaged drinks are constantly upgrading in process, raw materials and packaging, and the concept of health is becoming more and more prominent. The attitude of new consumers to drinks goes beyond functional needs such as thirst and refreshment, and then pins on the needs of the spiritual and social levels. As a result, seeking innovation has become a way to survive for new tea companies and even the beverage industry.
The spirit of constantly pursuing the ultimate, breakthrough and better taste has long been engraved into the product genes of Heytea. When a tea bottle drink is injected with the same DNA, it is injected with the same possibility of success.
From ready-made drinks to the bottled beverage market, Heytea is a pioneer and has its advantages. The market is obviously not lacking in opportunities, at this point in time, Xicha, which has made a good start, deserves continuous attention to the next move in the bottled beverage business.
At present, in addition to its own store channels, the Heytea bottled beverage business has covered the mainstream channel types of FMCG brands, including mainstream e-commerce channels such as online Tmall and JD.com, mainstream convenience stores and supermarkets represented by 711 and FamilyMart offline, and new retail channels represented by Hema and Dingdong. Next, whether to continue to play firmly on the basis of its own stores, or to enter a more extensive retail track and expand the market layout, depends on how Heytea plans for the business layout.
Offensive can be attacked, retreat can be defended, no matter where you go, the tea bottle drink can be easily laid out.