We must have talked over 100 times about how to be appealing to younger consumers, and today is time to give some serious thoughts on aging. People aged 65 or above account for 13.5% Chinese population in 2020, approaching where Japan was in 1993. With declining newborns, China is perhaps coming into a moderately aged society sooner than expected. Why not shift our sight to the opportunities contained in the "silver hair" market instead of fighting a hard battle in the unproductively competitive young consumer market. The young generation will grow old one day anyway : )
· Is the "silver hair" market not sexy enough?
· What are the opportunities for innovation?
Global food & beverage manufacturers are challenged by higher prices of raw materials, supply chain disruptions, higher labor cost, energy price surges and more stringent environmental regulations. The FAO Food Price Index indicates that global food price hits a 10-year record high. Flexibility and responsiveness in manufacturing and logistics are unprecedently important for brands and manufacturers.
As consumer spending falls back to rationality, product price returns to its intrinsic value. What kind of products are customers willing to pay for? Products that customers see value in them, of course. Where does this perception of value come from?
China's dairy industry's low-carbon transition is underway.
In this highly competitive dairy market, many brands are striving to grow tenfold. However, the key to high growth is to identify new categories with "full blue ocean markets". Where are the potential new categories hidden?
The release of Q3 financial report by dairy giant Yili Group ushers the dairy industry in China, or perhaps Asia as a whole, into the post-100 billion era. The financial results show that Yili achieved total revenue of 110.595 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 14.15% year-on-year. Yili also exceeded the 100 billion revenue target set at the beginning of last year, becoming the first dairy company in Asia to exceed 100 billion yuan in revenue. Where can we find the next driver as dairy players move into 100 billion scale?
With the development of global pandemic, consumers continue to pay more attention to personal health, especially immune health. This trend has driven the application of probiotics in more fields, not limited to fermented milk.
FBIF is throwing a party! Gen Z may possess the mysterious power that could shake up the whole industry. Growing up in a high-GDP, low-birth-rate environment, people born after 1995 enjoy far richer disposable resource as their birth right and have discerning judgement ahead of their age. As this young generation brings new capabilities to the market, they make it look "prehistoric" too. A group of Gen Z product professionals and their products are brought together to help us get insights into how they think about products.
In recent years we see an upward momentum in the dairy industry in China. Dairy products, as daily necessity, have witnessed a surge prompted by improved living standard. Amid changing competition landscape and evolving industry structure, more opportunities is emerging in segment markets.
Milbock purified milk is a special product from Biru, which has an obvious chievement as a very representative product in catering industry. However, Biru launched its first product in early 2016, called Beyogurt, which was a sugar free yogurt (200g) that not everybody knows. That is mainly sold through ToC distribution. From Beyogurt to Milbock, and from ToC to ToB marketing, Biru has been considering in depth that how their products could match sales channels appropriately while adapting business growth.
Business world is never short of noise and hustle, always with the hottest buzzword at the centre of the conversatio. However, while looking back at the long history of business, most trends have eventually been disproven. Today, when the consumer market has calmed down, the importance of common sense should be taken more seriously.
After all, there are not that many secrets in the business world, most of the 'secrests' are common sense.
Love makes a good coffee, let's coffee together~
How long does it take to 'plant' a cup of coffee? It took Yunnan a hundred years. What stage has Yunnan coffee reached today? How can coffee estates, baristas and brands work together to promote the development of China coffee?
Originated from China, tea has yet found a branding approach that is truly Chinese. Nationwide tea-producing regions form the basis of product diversity as well as hell-like challenges in standardization in production and brand management. What is the right approach to establish standardization in production and branding?
On a land of 9.6 million square kilometers, the taste memories of 1.4 billion people are variety. How to capture the beautiful flavor from the local terroir? How can local flavors go out to the whole country and even the whole world?
How to bring consumers back to their childhood, to their hometown and to the place where love begins with a beautiful flavor?
The flavor journey of a beverage is also an unforgettable journey that goes hand in hand with consumers.
An increasing number of made-on-site drink brands release pre-packed products, while pre-packed drink brands making attempts at brick-and-mortar stores. Both are doing the business of drinking. What do they have to learn from each other?
The development of new-style teas has released the potential of the entire tea market, ready-to-drink tea has also taken advantage of the rapid development.
However, from the point of view of the product, the innate advantage of the new-style teas in taste, texture has opened a large gap between ready-to-drink teas.
How to upgrade and innovation, so that ready-to-drink tea could replicate the sensory experience of freshly made tea, to gain a competitive advantage in different scenarios?
How to do strategy planning? How to build brand asset? How to improve individual components of marketing? We are honored to have a marketing professional who has steered many neo-consumption brands and is known widely to traditional food and beverage brands to walk us into case studies.
6.4% market share has been achieved by Buydeem with “life-nourishing” kettle cookers that are priced over one thousand RMB. Such success is mostly attributable to its content marketing based on users’ lifestyle, as it is very likely to see its products in posts by every lifestyle or food influencers and be intrigued.
Coming back to the food industry, how does AG manage to be part of consumers’ lifestyle through audio casting, content and KOLs?
On the first opening day of Blue Bottle (Shanghai Tongyu store), its fans waited in a 5-hour-line to get a cup. lululemon is showered with followers’ passion and loyalty for advocating a lifestyle that has even extended its product categories. Similarly, Coca-Cola and Suntory have earned consumers’ affection in a way that is subtle and yet profound.
What is the inspiration for food brands when it comes to brand power that works on the spiritual level? How to define the cultural core and philosophy for your brand?
Consumers are paying more attention to the ingredients list! What kind of strategic awareness do brands need in terms of ingredients to make better products? What new demands are consumers making on ingredients in 2022?
In recent years, "involution" has become a social buzzword that is deeply rooted in people's minds. Consumers are turning to food and beverages as an outlet to relieve the stress and anxiety. Science has proven that some probiotics can help us manage anxiety and stress. Will they help us unload the excessive stress?
With the gradual expansion of the probiotic industry, there are more and more benefits being gradually explored. Stress management, immune health, metabolic health... What kind of effects are most suitable for the Chinese market? What kind of strains can do more?
In 2020, 149 cities at the prefecture level and above had more than 14 percent of the population aged 65 or above, China Business News reported. When the aging is threatening, how to do the product innovation of the seniors market? What are the requirements and features that are going to be popular?
Functional foods have always been suspected of being an "stupid tax" in the eyes of consumers. How to do products from the perspective of evidence-based medicine? What kind of technology is needed to support the visible effects?
Do not know what ingredients to use for products? How many different ingredients are there for the same effect? What's new about the "old" ingredients you've used for a long time? AI can tell you all these questions!
The additives became the target of criticism, and the zero additive products won the limelight for a while. What is zero addition? What is the difference with clean label? Will the future be the home of zero additions?
"Kids Rule Here!"
This children's food company makes its brand strategy, marketing and packaging design decisions entirely by its target group - children. With the imaginative children's proposal competition, the strictly selected children board of directors, and the final launch of the coolest children products, the creativity-inspired brand ecology is then "successfully activated"!
Sometimes the best ideas come from outside your industry.
When it comes to packaging design, some sum it up as graphic design + brand design + industrial design. Perhaps there is more than one way to see it when you are in the game. The on-lookers may see a different game and an excellent idea may come from outside your field.
Every Pack brief is a Sustainability brief.
- How to emerge from the green sea of sameness
- Design for your channel
- Connecting your Pack to make it a true sustainability drive
As the times shift, the classics become dusty. To restore the brand to its former glory, we need to find the most shining part of the brand once again. KL&K Design, a professional consultant who has designed logos for more than 400 brands, shaped and renewed classic brands such as the Bank of China, Li Ning, Bama Tea, and Natural Food, will share with you how they "re-activate" the classics.
A noisy environment requires a louder voice, while a quiet place is more suitable for artistic expression. Whether product packaging design emphasizes more on visual impact or more on brand expression may follow a similar logic.
How to understand the visual connection between products and shelves? What are the new characteristics of this connection in the new emerging "shelves" such as boutique supermarkets, chat groups and live selling broadcasters? Will the integrated co-creation of personalized channels and product design become the future trend?
Chinese Sauerkraut Fish, Tan Yu, La César, Genki Sushi ...... They create fun in the ordinary times.
Why do those minded ideas that seem irregular always manage to capture the hearts of young people?
What can continue to attract young people when the dividend of the times is receding?
Let's join Pipi in the "brain-racking movement".
Can't finish your food? With a light wipe, the package is sealed; The half-eaten burrito is too difficult to pull out? Just tear along the center line, easily take it out! These are truly packaging designs that "understand you"! What is the design logic behind the more humanized functional design? Yi Zhou, an industrial design expert and jury member of the 2018 iF Design Award, who has led packaging design projects such as Starbucks Delivery and McDelivery, will present the topic.
There are a lot ot baked categories that succeed in sales every year. But just a few of companies keep developing these categories with constant creativity. People always talk about focus strategy. But how to put it into practice and develop a category to a brand?
There is a long-years battle of courage and wits over snacks between parents and kids. Parents disapprove kids throwing trash food into their mouths, while kids like whatever tastes good. Snacks for kids have their own special attribute—paid by parents and used by kids, so it is important to make both sides happy. The Gen 90s parents and children born after 2010 are two groups having distinctive and harsh criteria of their own.
What snacks for kids can do amid the clash of two sets of criteria and what does the future hold for it?
China Chic is rising assertively and booming in all fields, and Chinese cuisine in no exception. The past one year has seen too many products that went viral, like luosifen (river snail rice noodle) from Liuzhou, milk tofu from Inner Mongolia, emblic fruit from Guangdong & Guangxi as an ingredient in tea drinks, and chickpeas from Suzhou. What is trending now? What the next hit will be?
One simply loses count of great foods in China. Regional specialties become new stars one after another. We'd like to make a collection of snacks reflecting regional charm and invite experts to score. Which one of them has the potential to become the next luosifen that is loved across regions? Is anything missing?
Set off with puzzles and hopes.
Compared with the last generation of alcohol drinkers, how motivations and preferences of alcohol consumption have changed in the next generation?
There are flavored spirits that leave a mark on your memory. Where does the good inspiration come from? Which flavors are more premium? How to build a better layering? Are there any ways to sustainably pin-point flavors that would be loved by consumers?
Alcoholic drinks: taste it and FEEL it.
The alcoholic drinks market in China is perhaps standing at its most exciting moment in history. New players like hard seltzers and RTDs keep emerging, while traditional categories, led by spirits and wines, reinvent themselves with new vitality. Competition heats up as numerous boats are set to sail in the sea of alcoholic drinks.
This session looks at the evolving global beverage alcohol trends, recovery beyond the pandemic, and which innovations and developments could be long-term trends.
Wine made in China is no worse than that imported, but the lack of cost efficiency and brand value has prevented them from properly building a reputation. Wine-producing regions in Xinjiang and Gansu have done well in recent years, and spirits giants are making bigger bets on domestic wineries. We could not help thinking again if the time has come for domestic wines?
The $35 billion China imported wine market is changing rapidly. From industry to consumption and investment, how to catch the opportunities behind the next trend of spirits including whisky, brandy, vodka, gin, rum, tequila, sake, etc.?
Alibaba will reveal the whole picture, the trends, and digitization opportunities of the spirits industry, from the perspective of a platform ecosystem.
Personalized craft beers are emerging, but standardized production is an important guarantee of quality. How can creativity be nurtured in standardization? How can beer industry move on together with personalization and standardization?
Tremendous changes have taken place in today's social and economic life, compounded by consequences imposed by Covid-19, lead to emerging needs in kitchen and on table. What changes has the new age brought to cooking and dining? How do we depict the profile of the younger generation of consumers? What can be done by the condiment industry, perceived understated and old-fashioned, to win the young taste buds?
Szechuan Sauce and Seasoning have a long history with development of traditional handicrafts. However, consumers nowadays pay more attention to food safety, health and variety of tastes. The industry of Szechuan style condiments needs benefits of modern food technologies.
The restaurant industry is an indispensable driver to the growth of condiments. A report by Meituan shows that nationwide franchising rate grew to 15% in 2020, which was only 8.1% in 2010. Franchising and scaling up entail culinary consistency in taste and quality.
How to make the cake bigger with catering customization as the new trend? How much market space is left for the standard products? Should condiment companies choose customization or standard products?
Young people do not like to cook, do not want to cook, but the appetite is raised picky. How to solve consumers' cooking problems with one packet of condiments?How to develop capabilities that support fast iteration to keep pace with the fast-changing consumer tastes?
In the end, it is all about the taste. The special making process of 3R foods determines that their taste is slightly inferior to freshly cooked dishes. What innovation can be applied to 3R foods ahead of serving to please the discerning taste buds of Chinese diners?
Umami, the sensory experience that uniquely and significantly characterizes Chinese gastronomy. We expect this taste to be satisfyingly tasty and assuringly healthy. Where is the balance to strike among taste, healthiness, and naturalness for seasoning producers to win the hearts of consumers? Amid the spectrum of umami tastes in the profound culinary culture of China, what is the umami solution that can offer wide applicability to different cuisines? Last but not the least, where is the next innovation for umami taste?
Recent years see the zero-additive wind blow to condiments. Many brands expect such "reduction-ism" to be a key step in breaking out from homogeneous competition. But we all know that the core value of condiments stays with taste. How to preserve great flavor in recipe innovations? How should manufacturers gain consumer insights and needs to improve product development in terms of lightweighting of the ingredient list?
Sauce, as important as salt, is the highlight of light food. Traditional salad sauce, however, puts consumers off due to its high calorie. Sauce for light food, which claims to be free of sugar and fat, comes to the fore. Can light food sauce satisfy the actual need of dieters and compensate the plain taste of salad? Will it be accepted by a wider audience and cover more dining scenarios?
3R foods have been a popular choice for families during lockdowns thanks to its easy-to-make and easy-storage features. As restaurants reopen and delivery services revive, will its popularity sustain?
Here is a top player that has proved excellence in every and each aspect of the supply chain - raw material management, taste reproduction, cold chain network, marketing, distribution models, channel construction …… How does it come about?
The 3R food segment has long been troubled by volatile raw material prices, over dependency on third party refrigerated warehousing and transport, supplier management, and other unsolved problems. Which approach would be the best, to build a business empire through acquisitions and mergers, to own manufacturing capacity and align suppliers, or to enhance supply chain management for better cost efficiency?
From frozen product to 3R food, how should brands deliver their advantages, explore growth opportunities through meticulous consumer insights, create star products while laying out sales channels and deliver excellent products to consumers?
Condiments have a "fandom" too! How to run a brand private domain to have millions of "super sticky" fans? How to achieve a 450% buyer retention in private domain? And what makes fans so "crazy" that they buy up a offline shelve?
New players join the game with disruptions and inject fresh vitality to the condiment market. So far the battle has not been in their favor in terms of grabbing existing channels from old brands or competing brand image. Will emerging channels be the place where new brands neatly win their first battle?
Amid continuous changes in consumption patterns, it is a shared task for retailers and suppliers to boost online efficiency, draw consumers to shop offline and integrate online and offline experience seamlessly.
To cope with the ever-changing market environment requires not only constant self-enhancement but also reliable partners. How can suppliers and retailers be moats to each other by driving collaboration closer and deeper?
From 1 to 10, from niche market to mainstream consumers, new brands and products need broader channel partners that welcome novelty. At the same time, disrupted by O2O, live-stream e-commerce, and DTC brands, traditional distributors must step up efforts to respond to new consumer needs.
Some companies seem to have gone further in the narrative about building supply chain competence - acquiring and merging upstream players, building their own factories or industrial estates, laying hands on industry standard setting, etc. Possession and control bring peace of mind as well as larger investments. What are the advantages of and considerations for securing the upstream supply chain? How control can be gained by businesses that haven't gone far in the upstream?
A true mastery over a channel and a consumer group is what brands seek after. The brand stores and priviate domains are results of such attempts. Does there exist a proprietary channel that matches the instant offline consumer scenario and delivers on A/B test. The Cooler AIoTs that Genki Forest, Nongfu Spring, Coca-Cola and Wall's have all employed in their operation seem to offer an answer.
Changes in the flow of commercial value brought by various marketing tactics have raised the bar for logistics responsiveness, e.g., conventional e-commerce sales and live-streaming sales for the public traffic and brand sales events and social media marketing for the private traffic. Capabilities like accurate demand forecasting and efficient logistics scheduling will help businesses stay composed in all hustle and bustle.
In the process of a company going from 0 to 1, the combination of internal and external factors will shape its unique operating model, but the problems it faces may be similar—supply chain costs remain high, and customer service levels are difficult to improve. To build a supply chain with balanced production and sales and coordinated development, what kind of cognition do small- and medium-sized enterprises need? What are the possible points of focus?
Among various channels, eB2B likes a new planet waiting to be exploited. Around it are several force: Internet-based B2B platforms, retailers' owned infrastructure and brands' owned infrastructure, all of which want to take eB2B in their own possession.
What is the right way for brands to assess the value of exploiting the eB2B?
To cope with complex market competition, the supply chain needs to achieve good production and sales coordination
to ensure the production and sales coordination of small or large batch orders realized by personalized on-chain needs, in order to achieve order changes, flexible switching, and stable delivery period, For the price, it is imperative to provide the chain by itself.
The fervor in the new consumer market has spawned several promising categories with potentials to become a hundred billion market. How to distinguish between trends and fads, identify the real demand and realize the real market potential? How to really create new things instead of innovate only because you want to innovate? The emergence of ‘new species’ is bound to be accompanied by controversies and questions. How to define the category to help educate the market?
Being sensitive to the little happiness in daily life that may trigger micro-innovations, and dare to imagine when setting long-term goals; how can startups define their "category-relating zones" to develop an appropriate product matrix? How to consolidate and better utilize the advantage of your best seller?
When the one-time popular joke, which goes "5000 entries on The Little Red Book + 2000 entries on Zhihu + top livestreamers = prototype of a new brand", cools down, it signals that it is time to think calmly about how to build a brand.
For new brands to stand out, touching the bottom of people's hearts is more important than just taking over their attention for a while. Building a brand is like growing a tree. The roots must take hold before branches become strong and leaves green.
When consumers are having constantly evolving demands, exploring deep into the supply chain is a necessary tactics after the 0-1 stage. Achieving product innovation relying on improved supply chain and creating closed-loop supply chain system is the only way to achieve a long-life brand.
Consumers are gaining deeper and more professional knowledge about good products. In front of shelves, an increasing number of consumers read ingredients list and nutrition facts. On the Internet, there is more professional interpretation and discussion.
Less fancy marketing gimmicks, more genuine value, and build a moat of differentiation from the source. First-rate ingredients from the world, healthier substitutes, special processes, functional ingredients, anything else we can do to innovate from scratch?
One of the early-stage challenges of start-ups is that product innovation is often restricted by traditional supply chain or manufacturing system. The new era requires a supply chain that supports small batches, fast iteration, and higher agility.
- How do start-ups look at balance among quality, efficiency, and manufacturing capacity?
- How do start-ups look for partners, integrate resources and make a greater impact with the best combination?
- Is there any new collaborative practice between suppliers and service providers?
For startups looking forward to becoming the next "Coca-Cola", there is still a long way to go. They strive to break the predicament of homogeneity, but the uniqueness of the product and the popular taste is difficult to balance. After the early burst of acceleration, the profitable business model has not yet matured. Expensive marketing and channel costs make it more difficult to reach consumers.
The process of building a brand is tough, how did Coca-Cola stay popular all over the world for more than 135 years? Hopefully there are some key takeaways from Coca-Cola's experience for Chinese emerging brands
Far more than meeting the needs of busy white-collars and kitchen novices to eat well and cook more easily, 3R food has also become a good helper in three meals for consumers who are quarantined in home because of the lasting epidemic. It is expected that C-end 3R food will become more homely and of high quality in the future.
- In the product development, how to achieve differentiation and develop popular products?
- In the supply chain, how to continuously improve the quality and richness of product?
- In the channel, how to layout to improve the convenience of purchase and repurchase?
"Self-reliance" is no longer enough to keep up with the new consumption era. "The complementary model of technology and ideas" has built a co-creation ecology and become popular.
How does Nestlé select partners for its R&D accelerator in China? How can the collaboration model between the big players and the startups stimulate innovative ideas? And what kind of new ecology of innovation will be built in the future?