FMCG Eight Talks Chinese snack brands are accelerating their development of overseas markets. On the occasion of the convening of the National People's Congress and the National People's Congress, Zhang Xuewu, a representative of the 14th National People's Congress and chairman of Yanjin Shop, prepared a number of suggestions for this year's National People's Congress and the National People's Congress on supporting private enterprises to go overseas and supporting Chinese snacks to cultivate global brands. Zhang Xuewu suggested that we should promote the integration of China's Chinese snack standards with international advanced standards, and support the leading Chinese snack enterprises to explore the "going to sea" of the first chain. In the view of the industry, if Chinese snacks want to speed up the "going out", they still need to have supporting policies. In addition, enterprises should also transform and market according to local conditions, and carry out localized adjustments and improvements, so as to tap more overseas market space. 
Chinese snacks overseas market to welcome opportunities
More and more Chinese snack brands have begun to lay out overseas markets and take the step of "going global". For example, in 2019, Qiaqia Food began to implement the globalization strategy, and has put into production and built factories in many places around the world, and its products are currently exported to more than 50 countries and regions in Europe, America and Southeast Asia. In 2023, Weilong will set up an overseas business development center; Three Squirrels also has hundreds of SKUs to enter the United States, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and other markets, and has established brands on multiple mainstream cross-border e-commerce platforms......
Among them, many snack brands have picked fruits and achieved revenue growth in overseas markets. According to the financial report data of Qiaqia Food, the overseas market will grow by more than 10% in the third quarter of 2023, and the current overseas market revenue accounts for about 10% of the company's total revenue; In 2023, Weilong's overseas revenue will grow significantly; In the first three quarters of 2023, Jinzai Food's overseas market revenue maintained a growth of about 50%, and the number of export countries is also increasing.
In Zhang Xuewu's view, casual snacks can be roughly divided into Western-style snacks and Chinese-style snacks. Western-style snacks (sugar, puffing, potato chips, etc.) are basically dominated by foreign brands, and local companies are basically at the end of the value chain. There are still great opportunities for Chinese snacks (spicy, vegetable, seafood, meat snacks, etc.), which are basically dominated by local enterprises, accounting for 57% of the scale, and are a very growing segment.
At present, the concentration of the Chinese snack industry is low, and the market is relatively fragmented, with the scale of CR5 in 2022 being less than 15%. With the spread of social networking, the education cost of Chinese snacks represented by "Chinese taste" and "Chinese culture" has been greatly reduced, and Chinese snacks have ushered in historic development opportunities.
Industry data shows that global snack sales will reach $507.2 billion in 2023, and the market valuation is expected to reach $835.8 billion by the end of 2033. Over the next decade, the global snack market is expected to grow at a market size of 5With a compound annual growth rate of 1%, it is an attractive growth space. In Western snacks, the bakery market and candy market are close to saturation, while there is a market gap for salty and spicy snacks with more Chinese characteristics, which is also a market opportunity for Chinese snack brands.
In the view of Xu Xiongjun, a strategic positioning expert and founder of Jiude Positioning Consulting Company, more and more leading snack brands such as Three Squirrels, Yanjin Shop, and BESTORE have begun to explore "going overseas", on the one hand, the overseas snack market has room for growth, and Chinese snack brands can achieve more sustainable development by going abroad and developing globally. Another reason is that China's snack companies themselves have become more and more closely connected with the development of the world, for example, most of the nuts are currently purchased globally, many nut raw materials come from abroad, and many snack companies have also begun to catch up with the global industrial chain.
Standards need to be further aligned
From the perspective of the industry, expanding overseas markets is conducive to the more sustainable development of Chinese snack brands, but at the same time, it is also necessary to see that Chinese snack companies still face many challenges when going overseas, such as domestic and foreign snack standards, raw materials, chains, consumption habits, etc., which may be different, which also needs to be made from the enterprise side, policy side and other aspects.
Zhu Danpeng, an analyst of China's food industry, believes that the current difficulties in China's snacks going overseas are mainly due to the incompatibility of domestic and foreign product standards. "There are many Chinese snack standards that may not be suitable or match the standards of the European Union, the United States, Japan and South Korea, which requires snack brands to truly enter the standardization, specialization, branding, and large-scale development in order to better enter the overseas market. Zhu Danpeng gave an example that most of the domestic nut snack products are drawn from ingredients from all over the world, but products with Chinese characteristics such as candied fruit have the problem that the standards are difficult to match with the standards of overseas countries.
Zhang Xuewu suggested that we should actively participate in the formulation of international standards, promote the integration of China's Chinese snack standards with international advanced standards, and actively promote Chinese snacks; It is suggested that supporting policies should be introduced to support the leading enterprises of Chinese snacks to give full play to the ultimate efficiency and total cost leadership of the first chain, and explore the "first chain to go to sea"; Support powerful enterprises to increase their grasp of core raw materials, lay out production bases in global raw material producing areas, expand categories through mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, etc., promote localized transformation and marketing, "conquer the world's stomach with Chinese flavor", and cultivate leading brands of global consumers.
Xu Xiongjun believes that in order to promote Chinese snacks to accelerate overseas, the first thing is to take the brand first, and let the brand go overseas through advertising and other promotions; The second is the expansion of channels, talents, investment, sales and other aspects, such as India, Brazil, Vietnam, Africa and other countries, there is still a relatively large demand for snack consumption; Finally, it is to strengthen the layout of the entire industrial chain, for food, products are king, and enterprises should lay out the overall global raw material industry chain in advance. In addition, enterprises should also take care of and study the dietary customs and consumption needs of each place, and make some localized adjustments and improvements to the local dietary structure in foreign markets, so as to truly seize the minds of consumers in other countries and tap more overseas market space.
Beijing Business Daily reporter |Guo Xiujuan, Zhang Han.
Edit|Aspen.