The outbreak of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic has boosted demand for health products. Consumers are paying more attention to health and nutritional needs as well as product quality when choosing products. Against this backdrop, the health industry is facing tremendous opportunities.
On November 26, at the "2020 China New Consumption Summit Forum", Mei Jiang, General Manager of Small Can Tea's Marketing Center, Tu Changming, Director of Fats and Oils and Director of Public Relations of Yihai Kerry Group, Dong Ruiping, Vice President of External Affairs of Herbalife China, and Zhang Qianqian, Director of Public Relations and Communication of Infinity (China) Co. Zhang Qian***, Director of Public Relations and Communications of Infinity (China) Co., Ltd. gathered together to discuss the key factors for enterprises to seize this development opportunity under the brand-new environment, and to ****together contribute to a healthy life.
Epidemic stimulates demand
Since this year, consumer demand for health products has increased. The research report of Guosen Securities said: "Under the major epidemic, consumers' awareness of nutrition and health has accelerated. According to Baidu index statistics, the search index for the words 'improve immunity' and 'health' skyrocketed during the epidemic." In this context, the performance of related companies also realized positive growth.
For healthcare companies, Dong Ruiping said, "Herbalife continued to grow steadily in China in the first three quarters. So the epidemic is both a challenge and an opportunity for us."
However, there are also companies that have suffered a decline in performance due to the external environment. Zhang Qian confessed: "In the most serious time of the epidemic, our entire supply chain is broken, a lot of goods can not be sent out, a lot of raw materials can not come in, which also caused a lot of damage to our performance."
And for grain and oil company IHG, the home living environment boosted sales of the company's products. Tu Changming said, "After the epidemic, home consumption has increased. This year, some imported varieties and high quality grade varieties basically have a 20% increase."
Small cans of tea also in the third quarter to restore the performance and achieve growth in the same period. Mei Jiang said: "Small cans of tea in the main channels in the mall, the first and second quarter of this year, the malls are closed, so the first and second quarter performance has been more affected. But with the improvement of the domestic epidemic, our performance recovery is very good."
Continuously improve the strength of the industrial chain
Outstanding performance and excellent brand reputation stems from the continuous improvement of the enterprise industry chain. According to the guests on the spot, the world-class R&D center owned by Yihaijiali, a leader in the grain and oil industry, is one of the important factors for its success; Herbalife has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to set up a product innovation center this year; and Xiaojian tea starts from the whole industry chain to create high-quality tea products.
According to Tu Changming, the role of the world-class R&D center behind Yihai Kerry is obvious. "The biggest feature of the grain and oil industry is that processing profits are very thin, with an annual profit margin of about 2%. Companies must work on product quality, grade, research and creativity. Yihai Jiali has a huge food R & D center, since its inception in 2009 invested nearly 1.5 billion 16 billion yuan, led by world-renowned scientists, researchers, researchers, researchers more than 300 people, Yihai Jiali injected a new impetus and vitality."
Herbalife also pays close attention to product development and innovation. This year, Herbalife established a product innovation center in Zhangjiang, Shanghai. Dong Ruiping introduced: "This is our first global product innovation center in China, with an investment of 130 million yuan. It is not only for research and development, but also an innovation center to meet consumers' individual needs. At the same time, we have also increased the packaging above the innovation, hope to be able to launch quality products in a timely manner."
And the development path of small cans of tea is from the brand operator to the layout of the whole industry chain. Mei Jiang said, small cans of tea from the product development, quality control of raw materials, product innovation and finished product quality control and other aspects, have carried out a full range of innovation and investment. "In terms of adding the tea-making process, the tea-making masters of Small Can Tea will control the process and quality. At the same time, we are digitizing the master's process and controlling the whole process through a variety of testing and sensing devices in the product line. In terms of quality control of finished products, since the cost of manual tea picking is very high, in this context we have worked with IBM to develop an intelligent tea picking robot. In the next year, the world's first Industry 4.0 standard modernized central factory can be completed and put into use." Mei Jiang said.
Focus on young consumers
In recent years, the young group of healthy food demand increased. In this context, FMCG companies are also constantly adjusting to meet the needs and preferences of young consumers.
In the small pot of tea, the tea market contains a huge consumer space for young groups. Mei Jiang said: "Nowadays, young people, especially the 90s and 00s have a stronger sense of national pride than any other generation. At the same time, we see a lot of innovative tea products, milk tea, tea beverages, etc., but also in the education of consumers, slowly and naturally, these groups of people began to accept tea."
Mei Jiang said, "This year we have launched some product lines that can meet different groups of people, there are multi-bubble series, including the second half of the year out of the colorful cans (for young people's series), are aimed at different groups of people to do a more segmented product attempts, the effect is still very obvious."
Infinity side also felt the change, innovation in products. Zhang Qian introduced: "In April this year, we launched a new health food brand 'Nourish Solid Health', the traditional Chinese herbs through the modernization process to achieve instant food. We hope that through the brand of 'Nourish Solid Health', we can occupy a certain share in the segmented young market."
In addition, Infinity's business channels are also changing. Zhang Qian said, "We have recently done a lot of work, such as the development of Infinity micro-mall, marketing assistant small program, started the social e-commerce, global purchase, hoping to embrace this kind of e-commerce to achieve the transformation of the whole company. We hope that in the future, we will make efforts in the four aspects of culture leadership, product leadership, digital upgrade and business model evolution. In the future, we will still adhere to the main track of health and wellness, and embrace the blue ocean of future health together with our peers and the whole big health industry."