The coffee track in 2022 is “Crazy”. From March 8 to March 10, the chain coffee brand manner opened more than 200 stores in 10 cities including Shanghai, Beijing and Wuhan. At the same time, from the launch of “post office coffee” by China Post to the establishment of Goubuli coffee company, all kinds of cross-border new players continue to enter the game, making the already competitive coffee track more and more winding in recent years.
With the coffee shops of major brands blooming everywhere, in order to compete for the offline market and continuously meet consumers’ pursuit of quality and taste, the war of coffee track also began to spread to the upstream industrial chain. In addition to the main raw material coffee beans, pure milk, which appears as a “partner” of coffee, also stood at the outlet.
“partner” sub track opportunities appear
From Ruixing to manner, mstand seesaw, the rapid rise of a large wave of new coffee forces has made coffee one of the hottest tracks in the field of new consumption in recent years. And cross-border players are no longer new. Before Goubuli and China Post, Beijing Tongrentang Co.Ltd(600085) , PetroChina, Sinopec and many other industries have already entered the coffee industry.
With the vigorous development of the industry, the coffee track has become the pastry of capital. According to incomplete statistics, since 2021, the financing amount of the whole coffee track has reached 4.6 billion yuan, and there are many capital giants such as Tencent investment, IDG, byte beat and so on.
In order to find a breakthrough in the increasingly competitive track and continuously meet the increasingly diversified and picky needs of consumers, coffee brands have also taken a new height in terms of quality and taste, and the war has spread to the upper reaches of the industrial chain – in addition to looking for better coffee beans, more varieties of coffee “companion” dairy products (and dairy substitutes) have attracted much attention.
Compared with the west, Chinese consumers prefer to drink coffee with milk. The common coffee “partners” are milk powder, vegetable fat powder, fresh milk and whole milk. In recent years, Starbucks, Ruixing, manner and other brands have innovatively launched the drinking methods of coffee with coconut milk, coffee with oat milk and coffee with ice Bock, which has quickly become popular in the coffee circle. In 2021, oatly, the head oat milk brand, was “beating” the common coffee “partner”, and began to enter Starbucks, Costa, Tim Hortons, pyye coffee, manner and other coffee shops, and was successfully listed in 2021. According to the latest financial report of oatly, the total revenue in 2021 exceeded US $600 million, of which the Asian market increased by 136.5%, showing the strongest growth momentum. Ruixing coffee’s new raw coconut latte (raw coconut + coffee) was out of stock in 2021 and became the first choice of consumers that summer.
Zhang yunning, senior vice president of western advantage capital investment, said in an interview with Securities Daily: “The quality of the product itself is a key factor. Under the general trend of consumption upgrading, Chinese consumers have a certain understanding of the origin, taste, baking degree and even fruit flavor characteristics of coffee in recent years, and have more stringent requirements for taste. The milk or other vegetable milk with coffee can make these coffee beans with their own characteristics more possible , it’s easy to highlight the tonality of the coffee brand, making the coffee itself more competitive. “
purified milk station upper air outlet
In terms of dairy substitutes, due to the popularity of raw coconut drinks, according to customs statistics, the total import scale of China’s raw coconut (coconut without inner shell) increased by 37.4% year-on-year to 872000 tons in 2021. Similarly, oat dairy products have also expanded rapidly in the Chinese market, and Yili, Mengniu, Vitasoy and other brands have entered this segment.
As an upgraded version of milk, the purified milk represented by bingbock has also taken the express train of the expansion of China’s boutique coffee market and entered the channel of rapid growth.
In fact, “purified milk” appeared as a category and soon. In 2019, with the rapid development of China’s prepared drinks and the continuous warming of the coffee and milk tea industry, Shanxi Biru Food Co., Ltd. took the lead in applying new processing technologies such as membrane separation to milk production, developed a refrigerated purified milk and named it “bingbock”, It has opened the era of “purified milk” of new concentrated dairy products.
“In China, Japan and South Korea, due to the popularity of high-quality coffee and different coffee drinking habits, baristas will have higher requirements for the freshness and sugar content of coffee and added raw materials. Condensed milk can not meet the needs of these high-quality coffee shops. For example, the emergence of this ice bock purified milk is still a surprise, which just meets our requirements.” Zhang Yuanyi, director of Niuniu coffee college, told reporters. Many people in the coffee industry believe that the ice bock is rich, the salty and sweet cheese flavor is impressive, and it is safer and healthier than the store’s own production. The characteristics of high protein and high milk fat can also easily change the form to make all kinds of creative special coffee.
With the rapid emergence of dirty coffee made by bingbock into a popular product, purified milk has become a new concept in the coffee milk tea industry from unknown to popular at home and abroad in just two or three years.
At present, birubbock’s sales share in the catering and retail markets has been increasing, and the application scenario of purified dairy products has been expanding. It has covered nearly 10000 catering stores in 25 regions and more than 200 cities in China.
This segment of the track has also stood on the tuyere of capital. It is understood that Biru food has carried out three rounds of financing successively. The first two rounds of investment institutions include Challenger capital and Bozhong capital founded by Tang Binsen, founder of Yuanqi forest. In October 2021, Biru food completed tens of millions of yuan of pre-A round of financing, and the investor was buhun venture capital.
“We are optimistic about the company’s continuous innovation ability and supply chain ability in the dairy track in the future.” Buhu venture capital investment team said.
For the future prospects of this segment, Wang Yan, director of Kaifu investment research, told the reporter of Securities Daily: “The emergence of new purified milk is not only the innovation and upgrading of traditional dairy products, but also meets the current demand for consumption upgrading and the wave of Shanghai New Culture Media Group Co.Ltd(300336) ism. Consumers are more willing to pay for consumer products that can highlight the trend and personalization. At present, the main purpose of purified milk is still to focus on the use of b-end as raw materials. In the future, purified milk, as a cultural symbol, will be close to C-end The scene space is huge. “
