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Author |Restaurant boss internal reference internal ginseng Jun.
In 20 days, there were people who entered the game and those who escaped
The "dark horse category" yogurt has become a "besieged city"?
Approaching the end of the year, tea brands are busy "holding hands and holding together", perhaps preparing for 2024.
On November 8, Junlebao and Mo Yogurt successfully joined hands, and Junlebao will invest strategically to invest in Mo Yogurt brand to hold 30% of the company's shares. The two parties will also carry out in-depth collaboration and cooperation in various fields such as dairy raw materials**, new product research and development, food safety and operation management.
According to the analysis of industry insiders, the cooperation between the two brands is the embodiment of mutual benefit.
Through the strategic investment of Jasmine Yogurt, Junlebao has opened up the terminal retail to the C-end, and Jasmine Yogurt will become one of the important platforms for Junlebao product brand display and consumer interactionAt the same time, it has become the main party of raw materials for jasmine yogurt products, establishing a competitive advantage in fresh yogurt, and Junlebao's R&D system will also empower jasmine yogurt.
This has also become the first public financing of Mo Yogurt, as a ready-made sour brand, Mo Yogurt has more than 1,600 stores nationwide. For a brand of this scale, it needs the blessing of a strong first-class chain and the quality assurance of raw material milk source. It is understood that Junlebao will set up a jasmine yogurt exclusive pasture in the 380,000 acres of grassland on the Zhangjiakou Bashang grassland. The two sides can be described as "complementary".
Some people boldly speculate that the marriage and cooperation between ready-made yogurt brands and leading dairy companies may be a relatively stable and referenceable development path for yogurt brands, just like in 2021, New Dairy 2300 million yuan to acquire a 60% stake in Chongqing Hanhong (a yogurt cow).
On the evening of November 28, 20 days later, New Dairy announced that it intends to transfer 45% of the equity of Chongqing Xinniu Hanhong Industry to the related party Grassroots Zhijin Group48.5 billion yuan.
One forward and one behind, one advance and one retreat.
This acquisition, which was once favored by the industry, and even the industry's first cooperation case, may end in failure.
In less than three years, it was sold and was named "the pioneer of China's new yogurt", "a single product sold 100 million cups" and a yogurt cow that stepped into "freshly made yogurt" earlier, why did it fall into the situation of being bought and sold?
The reason for this is that the hard indicators of business performance have not been completed.
In 2021, there is a "VAM" agreement in the equity acquisition agreement signed by the two parties that the annual net profit of a yogurt cow in the next three years shall not be less than 38.5 million yuan, 42.35 million yuan and 46.58 million yuan respectively. However, the reality is that a yogurt cow will have a revenue of 2200 million yuan, with a net loss of 9.92 million yuan;In the first three quarters of this year, revenue was 2300 million yuan, with a net loss of 4.16 million yuan, a significant loss for two consecutive years.
Not only that, the store size target for a yogurt cow is very different, the brand opened nearly 1,000 stores in early 2021, and in the same year proposed the goal of "expanding to 3,000 stores in the next three years and challenging the target of 5,000 stores". However, the latest data shows that the number of stores of a yogurt cow in the country is still around 1,000.
In 2023, when the yogurt category exploded, in the face of the emergence of more strong brands, the former glory of a yogurt cow has long faded.
Look back at the year of the yogurt trackThe heat and controversy continued
In the spring and summer of 2023, the beverage industry ushered in an explosive period of yogurt, and some people jokingly called "2023 the first year of ready-made yogurt".
The business logic of freshly made yogurt is similar to that of tea and coffee, and even the model is "lighter", with higher customer orders, higher profits, and less competition on the track. In addition, coffee and tea drinks have refreshing ingredients such as caffeine and tea polyphenols, compared with yogurt, yogurt is suitable for a wider range of people, the elderly and children can drink it, and it can cover almost all age groups.
At the same time, the health card must be played, low-calorie, low-fat, organic, sugar-free, zero additives, no preservatives and other words, "must" appear, it is best to mark the origin and healthy ingredients together, in order to highlight the purity and professionalism of the brand.
The "heat" of yogurt is manifested in several ways:
1. The first is the rise of iconic brands. When it comes to the "explosion" of yogurt, we have to mention Mo Yogurt, which was founded in 2014 - using differentiation to push the category to a new climax and achieve first-class expansion.
Mo Yogurt has opened up the "yogurt milkshake" track, focusing on "avocado milkshake", highlighting "natural lightness and low burden", * up to 43 yuan. Taking advantage of the "east wind" of freshly made yogurt, Mo Yogurt has achieved a soaring number of stores, with only more than 500 stores in 2022, and by the beginning of July this year, the number of stores has more than doubled to more than 1,200. Up to now, the official *** shows more than 1,600.
2. The second is that the category segmentation is clear, and the mainstream players have their own powers. According to the characteristics of the product, it can be divided into snack yogurt and drink yogurt. The former is the logic of dessert snacks, focusing on "eating", representing brands such as Mr. Bianliang Xu's thick-cut fried yogurt, Spanish brand Salu frozen yogurt, full rice yogurt (yogurt fishing), etc.;The latter is the logic of tea drinking, with an emphasis on "drinking", representing brands such as jasmine yogurt, bluegalss yogurt, and K22, which is full of influencersYogurt strawberries.
K22 with a sense of Internet celebrity
In April this year, there were fewer than 20 stores, and now there are nearly 80 stores.
3. Some yogurt brands have obtained financing. For example, "Blueglass" received Series B financing in July 2021, with a financing amount of more than 200 million yuan, with the participation of Eight Roads Capital, Youshan Capital, Yue Capital, China Growth Capital, and Lingbo Capital. In March this year, Wang Zilin received an angel round of financing of 10 million yuan from Zhongpin Digital TechnologyMoke Yogurt completed a financing of 30 million yuan, which was raised by venture capital firm Kenetic CapitalLimo Yogurt also received 50 million yuan in Series A financing, and the investors were Luhai Investment and Jin Yixin Investment.
4. Involuted tea brands have put yogurt products on the shelves. In the face of the "explosive growth" of the yogurt category, seeing that the limelight is booming, the "veterans" of milk tea and coffee, and even teahouses, naturally not only wait and see, but also launch new related products, including Hey Tea (pasture yogurt avocado), Tea Baidao (yogurt avocado), Shuyi Yao Xiancao (avocado yogurt), Gu Ming (avocado almond milkshake), Nova Coffee (Vitality Earth avocado yogurt shake), boiled fir (Longjing yogurt avocado), etc. The price of these brands is about 20 yuan**, and they grab the category dividend with higher cost performance.
On the other hand, yogurt has also "flashed its waist" this year - the high pricing has caused controversy, and the category has been labeled as an "assassin".
In mid-July, the Weibo topic of the new product questionnaire of Mo Yogurt ** option minimum 68 yuan caused controversy, ** came out, and the controversy arose, and the yogurt assassin was strongly questioned by customers. But this also confirms the trend of high-end ready-made yogurt, and consumers have repeatedly tried and "fancy check-in" on social platforms while complaining about the best grades.
At the same time, the mismatch between product quality and high pricing has also become another controversial topic. Some netizens questioned the use of ice cream puree as the raw material for the production of jasmine yogurt shake, including food additives such as glucose syrup and refined vegetable oil. Blueglass was also found to contain white sugar in the ingredients and ranked second, which conflicts with people's impression of low-calorie health and no burden.
With a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan, I can't afford to drink yogurt", "A proper IQ tax", "Young people have lost their yogurt freedom", "A cup of yogurt of 45 yuan, 80% of them buy mentality......".A series of evaluations fermented on the Internet, and the final result was that the yogurt assassin who had sprung up still won hemp. Freshly made yogurt has taken advantage of this generation of consumers with the health and beauty labels that people like to see.
The tired milk tea category has frequently reduced prices, while the ready-made yogurt has a trend of bucking the trend. Many people in the industry believe that freshly made yogurt may be taking the old road of tea, and at the same time, the assassin incident has also exposed the shortcomings of the "lack of brand power" in the yogurt track.
Milk tea is no longer "rollable".
How can the yogurt track go further?
There are several reasons behind the explosion of freshly made yogurt:
One,In line with the current consumer demand for healthy quality tea, once the market trend is combined with the lifestyle, it is easy to quickly increase the volume. In addition, people have a higher awareness of yogurt, which can quickly establish differentiation from other tea beverage categories. "Although the head tea drink has occupied most of the market, it does not mean that yogurt and lemon tea have no opportunities, consumers have already established a category mentality, you are willing to go to Heytea to buy a cup of lemon tea, but may not be willing to buy a cup of yogurt, but to go to a yogurt store. A tea owner said.
Second,The ** chain of yogurt is very stable, and the cold chain transportation ensures that the raw materials are timely**. The upstream is Mengniu, Yili, Nestle and other mature head enterprises, the quality of raw materials is undoubted, Mo Yogurt and Junlebao have a great advantage in enhancing brand reputation and product innovation, so some people speculate that the layout of traditional dairy enterprises in the layout of ready-made yogurt may be a new path for the relatively stable development of ready-made yogurt brands.
Thirdly,The tea beverage track is tired, and some new stimuli need to continue to appear to stimulate the innovation of brand products, activate the popularity of the tea beverage track, enrich the tea product matrix, avoid the situation of product homogenization and simplification, and create a fresh experience for customers.
Fourth,It is frequently valued by capital, driving the market to focus on the yogurt track. From the perspective of the current yogurt brand players, most of the brands have not been established for a short time, the old brands have been deeply cultivating the category, grasping the market demand, building brand power, taking advantage of the explosion of the yogurt category in the past two years, with the blessing of capital, this year's perfect momentum, and even brought a certain "impact" to the tea brand.
It is called "Hermes in yogurt" by netizens
It's just that in the context of iterative update acceleration,New things come and go in a hurry, the trend is always changing, and there is no eternal king.
After entering the autumn and winter, the popularity of the yogurt category continues to decline, slowing down the speed of store opening. In the case of Mo Yogurt, the number of new stores peaked at about 300 in May this year, and the number of new stores opened every month decreased after that, and about 30 or 40 new stores were opened in October.
Of course, this does not mean that the potential energy of the category has declined, we see that the brand is not idle, and still continues to make efforts in opening new stores, launching new products, and doing marketing, after all, the heat cannot stay on one thing forever.
With high-end tea drinks educating the market, it has become relatively simple for the yogurt category to seize the market share of the most advanced tea drinks. And freshly made yogurt,The "absolute head" in the different ** bands has not yet been filled, and there are still opportunities for most brands that are making efforts, especially the 10-20 yuan parity ** belt.
At the same time, restricted yogurt brands can look for opportunities in "value iteration", on the basis of the gradual maturity of the yogurt categoryDeliver products that taste better, are fresher and healthier, and have more emotional value, because products are king.