Wen | Tide Business Review
"It’s over. It’s already 8: 10. I’m still sitting on the toilet. I must be late for work today!"
Rita rubbed her stomach and sent crying expression packs in the sister chat group. Recently, her stomach is always upset, and she has to stay in the bathroom for a long time. At ordinary times, she has attracted the attention of department leaders and wondered if she was secretly fishing in the name of going to the bathroom. Now she is estimated to be late for a while, and I am afraid she will be criticized today.
"Is your resistance declining? Do you want to go to the hospital?" The little sisters in the group responded enthusiastically to her.
"Hey, I am so busy at work, how can I have this time?" Rita replied gloomily.
"I recently saw a probiotic freeze-dried powder in Xiaohongshu. I heard that it is very helpful for digestion and can lose weight. I just bought a few bags and am ready to drink." Another little sister dropped a link in the group, and in a short time, other group friends replied "planting grass".
Rita opened the link with a grain of salt. On the product introduction page, she wrote some proper terms that she had never heard of, such as high viable bacteria, water activity, metazoa, B420, etc. But it was these terms that sounded very scientific that aroused her great interest.
"It looks very professional, and there are health food labels. Buy it and try it." She thought, click on the screen to complete the order in one go. At this point, the physical discomfort seems to disappear with the satisfaction of consumption impulse, and she got up and left the bathroom, ready to enter a new day with high interest.
Undeniably, health has become the most concerned label for consumers in the post-epidemic era, and functional foods are receiving unprecedented attention and pursuit. According to the data in "Ai Rui -2022 White Paper on Health Management in China", compared with other age groups, the health self-evaluation scores of Generation Z are generally low. CBNData’s "Young People’s Health Consumption Trend Report" shows that more than 90% of the post-90 s have begun to have health awareness, and more than half of them have embarked on the road of "health".
Problems such as too fast pace of life, upside down work and rest, and irregular meals have long been an epidemic among urban youth, and "sitting" has become the normal life of young people in the workplace, which has made their intestinal digestion and absorption a big problem. At this time, probiotics that promote digestion and absorption, improve immunity, lower serum cholesterol, and even claim to be able to lose weight naturally become a "panacea" that consumers and businesses are particularly fond of.
However, can probiotics and the hundreds of millions of huge markets behind them really continue to be "prosperous"?
The competition for the new consumer circuit is becoming more and more fierce. Since the beginning of this year, under the violent fluctuation of the economic environment, this is a realistic atmosphere that everyone can perceive.
According to the incomplete statistics of the retail research center of Lianshang.com, the number of financing projects in new consumption areas in the first half of 2022 increased by 67.5% compared with the first half of 2021, but the total amount of financing decreased by 18% year-on-year. Especially in the once-popular sub-track of catering and food and drink, the financing amount this year is even less than 10% of the financing scale last year.
However, the big consumer market is not as sad as everyone thinks. In the field of massive segmentation, there are still many categories that continue to prove their value to the market.
On July 20th, the probiotic dietary brand "Daily Bacteria" announced the completion of a new round of financing, with Jin Yumao leading the investment, Lianjie Qichen and Lanshang Capital following the investment, and the old shareholder Linge Venture Capital continued to raise money. Less than two years after its establishment, this window brand has completed three rounds of financing, and the accumulated financing amount is nearly 100 million yuan.
The sense of smell of capital is keen. In the same month, Caive Fund and Xianfeng Changqing invested in UNOMI Youli Health, a laboratory-level nutrition brand, while in August last year, the famous Temasek invested in WonderLab, a new nutrition brand.
In Little Red Book, there are as many as 1.07 million notes about probiotics. Tmall health data shows that the average growth rate of probiotics in the past three years has exceeded 80%, and the average daily search volume has increased by 60% in June this year.
According to the data, the global probiotic market is about 50 billion yuan at present, and China’s probiotic market accounts for about 10% of the global market. According to market research firm ZionMarketResearch, by 2025, the output value of the global probiotic industry will exceed 77 billion US dollars (about 490.6 billion yuan), and the market share of China will exceed 25%.
The probiotic track is on fire, which is a natural thing for the market.
First of all, this upsurge of consumption upgrading is inevitably spreading to all fields of consumption. Taking fermented dairy products as an example, the increase of per capita disposable income in China is transmitted to the consumption end of dairy products, which shows that residents put forward higher requirements for the health care function and variety of dairy products. Therefore, the sales of ordinary white milk in the market were frustrated, and the sales of yogurt and milk drinks containing active probiotics continued to rise, which made a good start for the popularization of the concept of probiotics.
More importantly, the new consumer brand, as a "catfish" in the market, has stirred up the probiotic track.
In the domestic market, the probiotic track was originally firmly controlled by overseas nutrition and health care products. However, for these "deep pockets" enterprises, their own product lines are very rich, and they have not paid too much attention to probiotic products. When new consumer brands with their own traffic enter the market, the probiotic industry will change.
Different from the traditional health care brands that emphasize professionalism and efficacy, the new brand of probiotics takes the way of lifestyle. WonderLab probiotic small blue bottle focuses on women’s weight loss scenes after 90-95 in the Z era, and it became a hit with its high appearance; Every day, the bacteria are introduced into a box of chewable probiotic tablets with a daily dose of independent packaging, and the products are close to the form of "delicious food" by adding fresh fruit to squeeze the raw juice freeze-dried powder; Every fresh person who focuses on healthy food has introduced pop rocks powder probiotics, which can be eaten directly in his mouth, giving him the feeling of pop rocks, and linked with the new generation idols Lin Mo and Elaine Zhong to promote it.
With the help of star effect and traffic support, the new brands that play tricks in packaging and product form have enabled the public to quickly establish consumption habits in a short period of time. The traditional health care products leaders have a sense of urgency and began to innovate constantly. Local R&D brands such as Ketuo Bio and Huada Gene also saw opportunities and began to outflank and catch up in technology. In just a few short years, the probiotic track has been "rolled up", and the category explosion brought by market competition has further improved the market penetration rate of probiotic products. Under such a high-quality cycle, a track with unlimited potential is attracting more people.
In the past year, the number of businesses in the probiotic industry increased by 50% year-on-year, and the number of goods increased by 82% year-on-year. In this newly emerging market, the new consumer brand of newborn calves, the leading health care products with deep pockets and the R&D enterprises with talents and skills are conducting a secret contest.
In the new consumer brand camp, it undoubtedly reached 60 million sales in the first year of its establishment, and was once rated as the WonderLab of TOP1, the most popular bottled meal replacement milkshake brand for women by Tmall.
The primary reason for the rapid take-off of WonderLab is that its product positioning is very clear, focusing on young women aged 18-30. According to their needs to improve their figure, high health literacy and preference for healthier weight loss methods, Wonder Lab takes "losing weight, being healthy and becoming beautiful" as its core topic, and "nutrition, high fiber and low calorie" as its product selling point, starting from meal replacement and extending to "beauty nutrition" category, and finally.
As the "big brother" in the leading health care products, Tomson Bianjian’s Life-Space brand has made outstanding achievements in the field of probiotics.
In fact, Tomson’s life in recent years is not good. From 2018 to 2021, Tomson Bianjian’s operating income has slowed down for four consecutive years. This year’s semi-annual performance forecast shows that its non-net profit is expected to decline for the first time since 2016.
The reason behind it is also very simple. In the era when online is king, Tomson Bianjian’s original strong pharmacy channel advantage has been greatly reduced, and because the relevant state departments have started to rectify the chaos and violations of laws and regulations in the health care industry since 2019, in the subsequent medical insurance reform, many places directly introduced policies prohibiting the use of medical insurance cards to buy health care products in pharmacies. Tomson Bianjian, who suffered a double blow, became very passive for a time.
Therefore, Tomson Bianjian decided to bet on rejuvenation and online transformation, and probiotics became its first goal. In this track, Tomson Bianjian can be said to be on the same starting line as other cutting-edge brands, but its biggest advantage is that it has money in its pocket. How to develop probiotic products as soon as possible? Buy buy buys! In terms of production capacity, on August 30, 2018, Tomson Bianjian bought the Australian probiotic enterprise LSG for A $670 million. This is the first overseas acquisition since Tomson Bianjian was established, and the acquisition premium is as high as 34 times. In terms of marketing ability, Tomson Bianjian’s 2021 financial report revealed that its annual sales expenses were as high as 2.478 billion yuan, accounting for 33.35% of revenue.
On the other hand, R&D enterprises and pharmaceutical companies such as Huada Gene and China Resources Jiangzhong have also taken a fancy to the track of probiotics.
For enterprises with R&D genes, their moat lies in their strong scientific research capabilities. At the early stage of industry development, the actual efficacy of probiotic-related products is still controversial. At present, the professional ability of R&D institutions has made a strong endorsement for their products.
Youda of Huada Gene emphasizes that it is an independent research bacterium of Huada, and emphasizes "data speaking" in marketing. In an exclusive interview, China Resources Jiangzhong directly stated that its lactic acid bacteria tablets are over-the-counter drugs and have definite therapeutic effects, while other products are mostly ordinary foods or health foods. From the perspective of competition, Lihuo brand lactic acid bacteria tablets in Jiangzhong do not have direct competition with other products.
Rich money, strong output, and flow. In short, on the track of probiotics, all parties have made many strange moves, and they are still moving towards a fiery tomorrow amid all the noise.
"All the probiotics now promoted in China are all fake medicines! "Recently, biologist Rao Yi bombarded the popular science video of Yin Ye, CEO of Huada Gene, which was full of loopholes, so that probiotics were pushed to the forefront in a disgraceful posture. In fact, the question about whether probiotics are an "IQ tax" is a "shadow" that has always been lingering in this industry.
At present, the research on the mechanism of intestinal flora in the global academic community is still unclear. Who is right or wrong about the views of two scientists on whether probiotics are effective is still controversial in the scientific community, and it is even more difficult for us as ordinary consumers to draw a conclusion. However, the food safety and false propaganda of consumer-grade probiotic products are indeed a stubborn disease in the market.
According to the Scientific Consensus of Probiotics (2019 edition) jointly issued by chinese institute of food science and technology Probiotics Branch, probiotics should have three core characteristics: sufficient quantity, viable state and healthy function.
Last September, Yakult was fined 450,000 yuan for publicizing the important role of probiotics in prevention and control in Covid-19. In addition, the penalty book also shows that the company also publicized that "beneficial bacteria in the intestine will be lost with the normal excretion of the human body, so it is necessary to supplement active probiotics every day to maintain the balance of intestinal flora", which will make people mistakenly think that not taking probiotics every day will cause adverse effects on the body; The propaganda that "a small bottle of Yakult with 100ml contains more than 10 billion strains of Lactobacillus casei, and one bottle a day can meet the needs of adults" will make people mistakenly think that drinking a bottle of Yakult lactic acid bacteria every day will meet the needs of the human body, while ignoring the supplement of probiotics other than Lactobacillus casei.
On the complaint of black cats, many consumers complained that many probiotic products were deteriorated, foreign bodies were invalid, the ingredients list did not contain probiotic ingredients, and even children had bloody stools after taking probiotics.
According to the definition of the United Nations WHO, probiotics are living microorganisms, and a certain intake is beneficial to human health. Therefore, only when there are live probiotics in food, and a sufficient amount of live bacteria is guaranteed during the shelf life, can the product be called "probiotic food". However, due to the vague category boundaries, the lack of national standards, disorderly OEM and other reasons, it is unknown from beginning to end how many active probiotics can enter the stomach of consumers after a long sales link.
In addition to effectiveness, there is another mountain that needs to be turned over in the domestic probiotic market, which is the overseas monopoly of the upstream raw material market. TF Securities’s research shows that at present, the international patent application for probiotics is basically monopolized by traditional R&D powers such as the United States, Japan and Russia, and the monopoly of foreign enterprises in the domestic imported raw materials market is also very serious. Foreign manufacturers DuPont (50%) and Kohansen (35%) are the two companies with the largest proportion of probiotic raw materials in China. These two foreign companies account for about 85% of the domestic raw material market, and the rest manufacturers account for about 15%. It is an indisputable fact that the strains introduced from abroad may not be able to colonize effectively in the intestinal environment of Chinese. However, the probiotic industry has strong intellectual property barriers, technical barriers, access barriers and financial barriers. It is difficult for domestic enterprises to develop strains specially designed for Chinese.
After getting up in the morning, Rita habitually soaked in a bag of probiotic supplements. Since she tried this product, it has become a necessary process for her to supplement probiotics on time.
"Hey, is that probiotic drink you bought last time delicious and helpful to your health?" New information pops up in the chattering chat group.
Rita put down her glass and replied, "I think it’s effective. I don’t always run to the toilet recently, and the overall popularity is much better." It seems that intestinal health is really important. I don’t go to street food stalls to eat barbecue now. I have three meals a day, and I go to bed early and get up early. The acne on my face is gone. "
"Wait a minute, so is your gastrointestinal improvement due to probiotics or not eating junk food?"
“… …” Rita typed a string of ellipsis on her mobile phone.
At this time, another message popped up, "Why bother? We drink nutritional supplements to seek psychological comfort and relieve health anxiety. Hey, is there an appointment for crayfish beer on the weekend? "
"About about!" Rita and her sisters sent a message at the same time. She picked up the cup in her hand again and took a swig, thinking, to prepare for the weekend dinner, add another pack of enzymes today.
