Author | Xu Yun

Editor | Egg Manager

Produced| Bullet Finance

In the memory of "post-95" Xinzi language, candy means reunion.

"When I was a child, when my parents went home from a long distance, they always bought candy for the relatives and friends who came to the village to share, and even specially brought a catty or two of candy to visit their elders. During the Chinese New Year, candy is basically a must-have new year for every household. "

As soon as the Spring Festival arrives, shops or supermarkets along the street are filled with colorful candy. Behind this festive and sweet feeling, many domestic and foreign candy brands have started the Spring Festival campaign.

The Spring Festival has always been the peak season for candy sales, especially for domestic candy brands. Almost half of the annual income comes from around the Spring Festival, which also brings seasonal business risks to the healthy development of sugar enterprises.

But a bigger crisis is coming from the outside: in the era of mass consumption upgrading and more abundant materials, the once "luxury" candy has become an ordinary snack, and it has been impacted by other rising zero food categories. Under the tide of health, people often talk about the color change of "sugar", and the per capita consumption of candy continues to decline, and the rise of e-commerce has intensified the impact of foreign brands on the domestic candy market ... < P > With the growth of age, Xinziyu has gradually realized the "decline" of candy: "The conditions at home have improved, and parents take home not only candy, but also snacks such as biscuits, sausages, shaqima and potato chips. I still buy candy during the New Year, but if there are no children at home, a small bag of candy may have to be placed on the table until the end of the Lantern Festival. "

In the face of the industry crisis, the reshuffle period is coming, and candy enterprises are seeking changes one after another, so it is imperative to transform or innovate.

After entering the twelfth lunar month, Su Qing ushered in the busiest day of the year.

Su Qing opened a candy and snack shop next to the most crowded vegetable market in a county town in the northeast of Guizhou province. Usually, he opens the door at seven o'clock to do business, mainly selling local specialty cakes, traditional handmade local products and a small amount of candy.

In the twelfth lunar month, Su Qing increased the purchase of sweets. He opened his shop at five or six o'clock every day and put a wide variety of bulk sweets into small plastic baskets for customers to choose from. During this time, the wife is in charge of the store, and Su Qing will go to the pedestrian street one kilometer away from the store to set up a stall to sell goods.

"Candy sales can be seen in this period of the year. The pedestrian street can last until 11: 11 pm, which is longer than the sales time in the store, and it can also reach more young consumers who don't like to visit the vegetable market." Su Qing said.

In Beijing, which is more than 2,111 kilometers away from Guizhou, the supermarket candy area is also a busy scene.

candy brands such as Hsu Fu Kee, Sister Ma, Alpine, Ferriero and Dove got ready for the Spring Festival peak season, and set up special booths for the Spring Festival one after another. The "pyramids" made of dazzling candy and chocolate and different shapes of New Year candy gift boxes attracted many consumers to stop and buy.

On October 29th, Bullet Finance saw in the candy area of a Carrefour supermarket in Chaoyang District, Beijing that two brands, Xu Fuji and Ma Dajie, occupied the largest display position, and Xu Fuji's team of promoters enthusiastically shouted a few promotional slogans from time to time, while Ma Dajie's brand only had one promoter, looking for packaging bags, answering customers' inquiries and sorting out the display area ... which made the promoters who just joined the company on the same day in a hurry.

By comparison, the prices of candy in Su Qing shops are far more close to the people than those of Xu Fuji and Sister Ma. Often, 7-9 yuan can weigh a catty of bulk candy. "There are many types in my store, and I pay attention to cost performance. Candy is not a big brand, but the quality is definitely no problem. Those who like big brand candy have gone to the supermarket or bought it online. " Su Qing said.

An aunt who chooses sweets in a Su Qing store told Bullet Finance that although her children proposed to buy sweets online, they only bought some chocolates in the end, and the others were bought in supermarkets or candy stores. "Online sweets are basically in large packages, so it is not cost-effective to spend the same money to buy only one flavor, and it is more convenient for merchants to mix what they want."

For a long time, the offline channel has been the main battlefield for the competition of candy brands. However, with the rise of e-commerce, candy brands have also launched online and set up their own official flagship stores.

According to the observation of Bullet Finance, online and offline candy sales show a trend of differentiated competition. For the same brand, the types of candy in online stores are far less abundant than those in offline stores, and most of them are packaged in a single category. However, gift boxes with innovative tastes and more expensive prices are mostly online.

In terms of sales cycle, offline sales cycle is much longer than online sales cycle. When online stores stop delivering goods around the Spring Festival, offline channels become the only battlefield for candy sales.

in order to win the battle of the Spring Festival, the major candy brands spent a lot of thought.

Take Xu Fuji and Ma Dajie, the main force of New Year's candy, as examples. Before the Spring Festival, Xu Fuji launched a gift box of nuts+candy dots to try to cross the border nuts, and launched a gift box co-branded with yogurt brand Anmuxi. Sister Ma has launched a variety of gift boxes, such as the candy gift box in old Beijing, and the chocolate box with the flavor of Niulanshan Erguotou.

If you want to win the promotion campaign of the Spring Festival, you should not only work hard on the product itself, but also keep up with the marketing and channels.

CCO Yang Xuebao, Ma Dajie's food, told Bullet Finance that Ma Dajie has taken four major measures in Spring Festival sales:

First, strengthen online sales. In the past, Sister Ma's online sales were relatively weak offline. After entering October in 2121, Sister Ma began to strengthen online sales of e-commerce. "On the live broadcast of e-commerce, we found influential people such as Wu Zhaoguo, a good thing recommender in Aauto Quicker, Wong Cho Lam, Zhang Bin, a host of CCTV, and Liu Qian, a magic master, to carry out live broadcast with goods."

second, broaden new retail channels. Sister Ma has successively reached cooperation with national community group buying platforms such as Xingsheng Youxuan, Jingxi and Duoduo Shopping, as well as regional platforms such as Changsha Zhihua Zhiguo, Shandong Xiaoai Alliance and Zhengzhou Youjing Oilfield. "In the past two months, nougat alone has sold more than 61,111 boxes with a total of more than 1.8 million bags in a city in Hunan, the preferred platform for prosperity."

Third, increase offline experience activities. "On the offline' main battlefield', in addition to the normal stacking and display as in previous years, we also selected more than 1,111 supermarkets and stores such as Carrefour and Yonghui in 111 cities across the country, and launched about 11,111 creative DIY activities of nougat and chocolate to let consumers participate in the candy making process."

fourth, promote group buying by government and enterprises. "For some government departments or enterprises that have group buying needs during the Spring Festival, we will promote the sales of candy gift boxes and national tide gift boxes in old Beijing."

according to yang xuebao, after the implementation of the four major measures, the sales performance of the spring festival has achieved double-digit growth compared with previous years only from the perspective of factory delivery.

What Yang Xuebao is most worried about is the adverse impact of the epidemic on offline sales. "Our goods have been sent from factories to supermarkets, hypermarkets and dealers. Now we just hope that the epidemic will improve as soon as possible, otherwise everyone will not dare to go out shopping, and we may be involved in some channel inventory consumption problems after the year."

Behind the Spring Festival campaign of candy brands is the long-standing problem of "Spring Festival dependence" in the industry.

Yang Xuebao told Bullet Finance that the sales in the first two months of New Year's Eve (October and February of the lunar calendar) accounted for about 51% of Sister Ma's annual sales.

Although it has already been acquired by Nestle, a foreign-funded enterprise, the income of Hsu Fu Kee, who was born and raised, is also dependent on Spring Festival sales. At the beginning of 2118, insiders of Xu Fuji revealed that Xu Fuji's Spring Festival sales accounted for 41% to 51% of the whole year.

This also means that once the sales volume is poor during the Spring Festival, the performance of candy enterprises will be greatly affected, and the long-term development will easily leave consumers with the stereotype of "New Year candy". From the perspective of business operation, the annual revenue imbalance is obviously not conducive to long-term development.

Although foreign brands have also introduced Spring Festival gift boxes as the Romans do, compared with domestic brands that are highly bound to the Spring Festival, foreign candy brands have relatively average annual sales and are not so dependent on the Spring Festival.

therefore, how to balance the income in off-peak season has become a difficult problem to be solved by domestic candy enterprises.

"Since 2119, some changes have taken place in our product structure." Yang Xuebao told Bullet Finance that in order to balance the sales in off-peak season, Sister Ma increased the jelly business in 2119. In 2113, more leisure categories such as baking, bean products and biscuits were added.

In 2119, moving from snacks to catering became a new strategic direction for Sister Ma. To this end, Sister Ma also increased the fresh bean products business of high-frequency consumption, producing tofu, soybean milk and bean skin. "Today, our products are available in Youxian and Haidilao every day. However, because of the time and cold chain transportation restrictions, fresh bean products are currently only sold in North China such as Beijing, Hebei and Tianjin. From April to May 2121, our bread also achieved a year-on-year growth of over 41%. " Yang Xuebao said.

however, the crisis faced by candy enterprises is far more than seasonal business risks, and the overall demand is weakened.

In recent years, new snack brands such as "Three Squirrels", "Good Shop" and "Herb Flavor" have risen rapidly, and a part of the candy market has been diverted by the rich zero food category. With the improvement of public health awareness, the demand for low-sugar and sugar-free products has increased, which in turn has led to the decline of per capita candy consumption in China year by year.

According to the Report of Market Research and Investment Strategy Consultation of China Candy Small Food Industry from 2121 to 2125 by Huajing Industrial Research Institute, the per capita consumption of candy in China has dropped from 1.41 kg in 2114 to 1.28 kg in 2119.

the trend of reducing saccharification and health is actually an industry crisis.

According to the report of Huajing Industrial Research Institute, since the candy production in China reached a high of 3.519 million tons in 2116, there has been a negative growth. In 2117, it decreased by 215,111 tons, and the output in 2118 was only 2.883 million tons. It was not until 2119 that the output of candy rose to 3.298 million tons, but in 2121, as of October, the cumulative output of candy in China was 2.317 million tons, down 8.69% year-on-year.

According to Zhu Danpeng, a food industry analyst in China, candy enterprises should take differentiated development measures to cope with the risks brought by the shrinking market.

"Now the homogeneity of candy products in China is very high, but we can see that the new generation is actually not resistant to new brands, nor to novel products, so the iteration of innovation and upgrading still needs to be done. Traditional candy brands do not mean that there are no consumers, but that they have not solved the core needs and demands of the consumer side, and have not solved the pain points of the consumer side. " Zhu Danpeng further pointed out.

although the domestic candy market is shrinking, from the data performance, there is no chance for the Chinese candy market.

an example is that the sales of Russian candies such as purple candies in China still have a relatively good growth in recent years, and they have become a powerful showstopper in China's candy market.

Huang Xiaoxiao, who lives in Guangxi, told Bullet Finance that she started buying Russian candy such as purple candy on the e-commerce platform in 2119. Nearly two years later, the Russian food categories she bought also expanded to sausages, honey and so on.

according to the data of Manzhouli customs, the import value of Russian purple sugar at Manzhouli port reached 461 million yuan, up 86.4% year-on-year.

"KDV (a large Russian candy and snack manufacturer) purple candy has a good taste and ingredients. It is an imported food, but the price is not expensive. It is not only bought for family members at ordinary times, but also bought for relatives in other provinces as gifts on holidays, which is quite handy. Another sandwich fudge under KDV is also very popular among children. " Huang Xiaoyu said.

the rapid expansion in China market has also promoted the development of Russian related enterprises. According to lyudmila Fyodorova, general manager of Russian Skylex Consulting Company, the sales of KDV Group, which opened stores and warehouses in Inner Mongolia in 2118, increased by 51% year-on-year.

Today, Russian candy exports to China are still increasing.

Dmitry Krasnov, head of the Agricultural Products Export Development Center of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, pointed out earlier that Russia's total candy exports to China will reach 71 million US dollars in 2121, up 21% year-on-year; Russian candy exports to China will reach 79,111 tons, compared with 67,811 tons in 2119.

The representative of Russian United Candy Co., Ltd., the largest candy company in Eastern Europe, said that despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the export of products to China will increase by 21% in 2121.

"The variety, exquisite packaging and diversified convenient purchase channels make Russian candy sell well in China, which promotes the growth of candy imports." Sun Fei, who has worked in the field of candy import for many years, told the media.

Looking around the candy market in China, Russian candy is not the only foreign candy in showstopper.

In terms of market share, foreign brands have long occupied a dominant position in China's candy market, and the top five are foreign-funded enterprises, namely Mars, Nestle, Alps, Yizi International and Ferriero. Domestic brands Hsu Fu Kee and Golden Monkey have also been acquired by foreign-funded enterprises Nestle and Hershey.

for a long time, the homogenization of products in China's candy industry is seriously lacking in innovation, insufficient branding and lagging marketing methods, which is considered to be an important reason for being surpassed by foreign capital.

Yang Xuebao frankly told Bullet Finance that international brands are indeed far superior to domestic brands in terms of capital, talents and management, which has brought great competitive pressure to domestic brands.

in his view, when dealing with international brand competition, the core response measures of domestic brands are to make good products, make products more suitable for Chinese people's tastes, and work hard from the fundamental quality of products to ensure the taste of candy from the aspects of raw material selection and technology. While doing a good job in product quality, we should also actively learn from international brands about talent cultivation, overall operation and brand promotion.

For example, Yang Xuebao said, "Many consumers and distributors have said that Sister Ma's products are simple and even rustic, and the packaging is not so exquisite and the connotation is quite small. In the past two years, we have learned suggestions to make the packaging value higher while maintaining the product quality. For example, in 2121, the' Old Beijing is not enough to eat' national tide gift box and Niulanshan Erguotou flavor wine chocolate gift box were launched, and the external feedback was very good. Niulanshan Erguotou flavor wine chocolate gift box was sold out in late October this year. "

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