With the trend of healthy consumption, they no longer want to rely on the spicy snack business
2024-08-11
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Recently, Zhengzhou Jialong Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jialong Food") launched two healthy products, Corn Baobao and Zero Bamboo Shoots, with corn and bamboo shoots as the main raw materials. Previously, Jialong Food's signature products were spicy strips such as "Whole Grains Spicy Strips", "Fresh Bamboo Shoots Konjac", and "Hand-Torn Vegetarian Steak". Jialong Food Chairman Li Yuanzheng said at the Jialong Brand Health Strategy and New Product Launch Conference that if the old ways continue to be used without transformation of product categories, consumers will not favor it.
In the process of making its products healthier, Jialong also faces a lot of pressure, mainly in the form of increased costs. "As the healthy snack market continues to expand, more and more companies are joining the race, and competition is becoming increasingly fierce. We are under pressure to control costs and make profits during product development and production. The cost of raw materials for healthy snacks is relatively high, and with fierce market competition, marketing costs will also increase," said Yang Qiong, general manager of Jialong Foods, in an interview with media including Yicai.
It’s not just Jialong. The trend of healthier food has also spread to Weilong Delicious (9985.HK), the leader in the spicy snack industry.
Financial report data shows that from 2022 to 2023, the revenue share of Weilong's main product, seasoned noodle products (referring to spicy noodle products), has been declining, from 58.7% in 2022 to 52.3% in 2023. However, the revenue of vegetable products business has grown rapidly, accounting for 36.6% of the total revenue in 2022 and 43.5% of the total revenue in 2023. In terms of sales volume, vegetable products increased from 54,500 tons in 2022 to 71,500 tons in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 31.1%.
The continuous trend of spicy snack companies towards health has a lot to do with the change in current consumer eating habits. At the roundtable forum of this conference, Yu Zhihong, a senior researcher at Xiamen International Trade Supply Chain Industry Research Institute, said that snack food companies are facing transformation and upgrading. On the one hand, the original stock market is limited and the industry is involuntarily serious; on the other hand, consumers are pursuing health more and more. When buying goods, they will look at the ingredient list to see if there are any additives and whether it is a sugar-free, low-fat food. Under such new consumption trends, companies need to transform and upgrade and optimize their products.
Since the spicy strips industry started in 1994, as of 2022, the domestic spicy strips industry has exceeded a market size of 50 billion, but its characteristics of "high oil, high salt, high additives, and low nutrition" make some consumers think that spicy strips are "junk food", but there are also some consumers who love it because of the taste, especially some young consumer groups and even students.
On October 1, 2022, the first industry standard for flavored noodle products (QB/T 5729-2022) was officially implemented. This light industry standard for flavored noodle products is also the first industry standard for the so-called "spicy strips" in recent years. The industry standard clearly stipulates the definition, raw material requirements, sensory requirements, pollutant limits, microbial limits, and factory inspection of flavored noodle products, which has a more positive significance for industry supervision.
The nutritional and health issues of spicy noodle products have also attracted the attention of regulatory authorities. At the end of 2019, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a quality and safety supervision announcement, requiring spicy noodle manufacturers not to use food additives beyond the scope and limit; and advocating manufacturers to reduce the salt, fat and sugar content in seasoned noodle products to improve the nutritional and health level of products, and requiring local education, health and market supervision departments to guide schools to strengthen food safety and nutrition and health education, and cultivate healthy eating habits among primary and secondary school students.
The "Healthy China Action (2019-2030)" issued by my country in 2019 proposed a reasonable dietary action, focusing on encouraging the whole society to reduce salt, oil and sugar, and advocating that by 2030, the average daily salt intake per person should not exceed 5g, the average daily edible oil intake per adult should not exceed 25-30g, and the average daily added sugar intake per person should not exceed 25g.
(This article comes from China Business Network)
