China Business Daily (reporter Zhou Zijing text/photo) In the dazzling children's snack market, children's cheese attracts countless eyes. In fact, the children's cheese category has developed rapidly in recent years, and the competition between large and small dairy enterprises is fierce, often engaged in terminal promotions. Why is the children's cheese market so "fragrant"? How much is the nutritional content of children's cheese?
According to the sales staff of a supermarket in Daxing District, Beijing, the cheese display cabinet is much larger than before.
Marketing promotions are constant
"It's good to buy children's cheese now, and some brands have a buy-one-get-one-get-one campaign that's been going on for days." On May 31, the day before Children's Day, Li Huiying (pseudonym), a worker at a supermarket in Beijing's Daxing District, told a China Business Daily reporter.
According to Li Huiying's observation, in the past two years, children's cheese products have been favored by consumers, many mothers have come to buy children's cheese for their children, and many children can 'walk' when they see the beautiful cartoon image on the cheese packaging. With the popularity of the consumer side, there are more children's cheese brands on the shelves. "Before, there was only one children's cheese brand in Miaoke land, but now the children's cheese showcase is much larger than before, and the brand is rich."
China Business Daily reporter visited several supermarkets in Beijing and found that the children's cheese display cabinet was much larger than before, of which Miaoke Lando products showed the most, and other foreign brands such as Bae GF, Lezhi cattle and domestic brands such as Yili Miaozhi, XiaoXiao guangming, Sanyuan and Miaofei were also included. The price is mostly between 10 yuan and 30 yuan per bag.
And many of The products under Miaoke Lando and Miaofei are listed in the promotion. Li Huiying revealed that recently there are often children's cheese brands to launch buy one get one free promotions, and the overall market price is much cheaper than before. In addition, a reporter from China Business Daily searched for the home of Jingdong Supermarket and found that many of Miaoke Lando's products were among the promotions.
In this regard, dairy analyst Song Liang told the China Business Daily reporter that the current competition in the children's cheese market has been very fierce, due to the serious homogenization of products, players who enter the game can only compete for prices. "At present, large-scale promotions in the children's cheese market are common, and the 'war' has spread to the markets in third- and fourth-tier cities."
The "big war" between the new and old giants is in full swing
As a segment of the dairy industry, the children's cheese market has grown rapidly in the past two years, and new and old giants have entered the market, why is children's cheese so "fragrant"? According to Euromonitor consulting data, the retail scale of China's cheese market in 2013 was only 2.67 billion yuan, but by 2019, it has reached 6.55 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 16.13%. In 2020, the market size of China's cheese industry reached 8.843 billion yuan, an increase of 22.72% year-on-year. According to the Kantar Consumer Index, children's cheese accounts for 55% of the cheese retail market share, which is one of the fastest growing segments in this market in recent years.
From the perspective of brands, in the past few years, China's cheese market has been dominated by foreign brands such as Bagelford. In 2018, Miaoke Lando launched children's cheese sticks, followed by many domestic brands competing to follow. For example, Mengniu launched the "Future Star Children's Growth Cheese Stick"; Guangming launched the "Little Bright Children's Growth Cheese Stick"; adopted a cow and listed the "Great Kids Cheese Stick". Recently, Junlebao also launched the "Cheese Stick with Rising Cheese La Zengcong Recipe" for the first time.
Why do old and new giants favor children's cheese? In this regard, Song Liang told the China Business Daily reporter that the launch of children's cheese products by large and small dairy enterprises is due to the slowdown in the current growth of the dairy industry, while the cheese business, especially the refined cheese business, has grown rapidly. Dairy giants have entered the cheese market in order to find new performance growth points to improve the current lack of performance dilemma.
As a rising star in the dairy industry, the relevant person in charge of adopting a cow told the China Business Daily reporter, "Among our users, the mothers after 85 and 95 account for a relatively large proportion, and their acceptance of cheese is relatively high, and the company makes cheese sticks to provide users with more choices." However, cheese sticks are not the company's strategic products, and the company still focuses on milk and yogurt. ”
With the entry of large and small dairy enterprises, the children's cheese market has also exposed many problems. Song Liang believes that there are four main problems in the current children's cheese market: first, the entry threshold is low, and many non-dairy companies have also entered the game; second, the homogenization of products is serious, and a large-scale promotion "war" has been opened; third, the market volume is small; fourth, there is only a standard for re-making cheese in China, there is no special children's cheese standard, and the products in the children's cheese market are various, and there is a phenomenon of bad money expelling good money. For the future development of the industry, Song Liang believes that the technical threshold of children's remanufactured cheese business is low, the production difficulty is not large, and more enterprises will enter the market in the future, and the market competition will become more and more intense.
With the entry of large and small dairy enterprises, how to deal with Miaokelando, as the "first stock of cheese"? Its relevant person in charge told the China Business Daily reporter that any business has a process from the "blue ocean" to the "red sea", benign competition can allow consumers to get more high-quality cheese products, for the industry, we can do cheese consumer education together. In the future, Mioclando will open up other incremental markets besides cheese sticks, and the company has stockpiled a number of potential products.
Exactly how much nutrients there are
Why do consumers prefer children's cheese, and how much nutrient content does its product have? In a supermarket in Beijing's Daxing District, Ms. Li, who is buying children's cheese, told the China Business Daily reporter, "My children do not like to drink milk, and I heard that eating cheese can also supplement calcium and other nutrients, so I often come to buy children's cheese for my children." Fortunately, the cheese taste is ok, and children prefer it. Consumer Ms. Jiao told the China Business Daily reporter, "Cheese can supplement some nutrients, occasionally buy a little, my children love to eat, and the outer packaging is very cartoonish, you can keep playing." ”
"Supplemental nutrition" is the main driving force for mothers to buy children's cheese, so how much nutrition is there in children's cheese? How high is the cheese content? China Business Daily reporter checked the list of ingredients for a variety of cheese sticks sold on the market and found that the current children's cheese products are mostly remade cheese, and the cheese ingredients in the ingredient list are mostly in the second or even third place, and then there are various food additives such as edible glue. For example, in the ingredient list of little bright children's cheese sticks, the top three ingredients are water, cream, and cheese, followed by carrageenan, locust bean gum, xanthan gum, trisodium phosphate and other food additives.
In the list of ingredients for the Little Bright Children's Cheese Stick under the Banner of Light, cheese ranks third.
Zhong Kai, director of the Science and Technology Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center, told the China Business Daily reporter that the ingredients in the food ingredient list are indeed sorted according to the amount of more to less, but the same is labeled cheese, and the dry matter content of different types of cheese varies greatly. Compared to children's cheese at the retail terminal, cheese slices for burgers and mozzarella for pizza have a higher proportion.
Du Changcheng, a dairy development technology expert at the Institute of Agricultural Product Processing of Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told the China Business Daily reporter that according to China's standards, the cheese content in the reconstituted cheese should be more than 15%, while according to the standards of the European Union and the United States, it is required to be more than 50%, and the reason for the difference in standards is mainly due to the eating habits of the Chinese people. People who rarely eat cheese will eat products that are not accustomed to having too much cheese content. He calculated an account for the China Business Daily reporter, "At present, the commercially available reconstituted cheese, the dry matter content is generally more than 40%, of which the cheese content is generally between 15% and 20% (of which more than 50% is water, the rest is dry matter), the cream content is about 10%, the sucrose content is about 10%, and the rest have some protein, whey and edible glue and other additives." ”
Wang Yumei, former director of the Nutrition Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University, told the China Business Daily reporter that a lot of additives and sucrose are added to the reconstituted cheese, and it is not recommended that children eat it regularly. She suggested that parents should look at the nutrition facts list when buying children's cheese, and cheese with high sodium content is not suitable for children. In fact, it is important for children to drink milk, as long as the amount of milk is sufficient and the diet is balanced, cheese can be used as a supplement or snack. Zhong Kai also believes that for children who drink 300-500 ml of milk or yogurt every day, cheese is not necessary.
However, Du Changcheng said that even if the cheese content is low, eating cheese is still beneficial to children, and the peptides contained in cheese can enhance the body's immunity and are irreplaceable by other substances. However, if children eat too much cheese, it is also easy to cause problems such as excessive sucrose intake.