Originally published by Chaintruth Outlook
By | Cao Yang Feng Xiaoting
Edited by | Rao Xiafei
"It's not clear, there's no impact, we're doing everything normal here."
Although the "0 sucrose and 0 sugar" incident has caused a furor among consumers, Burning Finance's on-site visit found that Yuanqi Forest's production base in Chuzhou, Anhui Province, was unperturbed.
"I heard that they are still expanding the production base, but also in a large number of recruitment." Chuzhou locals have a favorable impression of the Yuanqi Forest factory, "They are treated better than the local area."
But in Chuzhou, the local, "Yuan Qi Forest" drinks are not well known. In the burning finance hotel, the hotel goods display and did not find the figure of Yuan Qi Forest products, more or Master Kong, Coca-Cola and other conventional drinks. In the local supermarket shelves, Yuanqi Forest products are only a "milk tea Mal flavor" drink commissioned by the party appear Chuzhou factory information. The company's main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers.
Local residents of the Yuanqi Forest also does not have much knowledge, older citizens mostly said they have never heard of this brand, only when mentioned Yuanqi Forest in the local factory information, will react, "Oh, you say this ah, this is just a Beijing brand, in Chuzhou factory only." They do not drink much of this locally produced "net red drink", "a little expensive, I heard or sugar-free? There is no special flavor, we do not like to drink."
But what is not so popular in the region of origin is very popular among young people.
According to the New Beijing News Shell Finance reported that during 6-18 in 2019, Yuan Qi Forest sold 2.26 million bottles of drinks on Tmall, taking the "first place in sales and sales of Tmall's water drink category", with total sales of 3.23 million bottles across the network and total sales exceeding 15 million yuan. And in May 2020, Yuanqi Forest single-month sales reached 260 million yuan, more than the whole year of 2018; the first five months of 2020, **** counted 190 million bottles sold, with total sales of 660 million yuan. 2020 full year, Yuanqi Forest realized sales of nearly 3 billion yuan.
"0 sucrose and 0 sugar" is the selling point of the Yuanqi Forest, from the beginning of the birth, Yuanqi Forest has been playing "0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories" "Health Flag" quickly become a domestic The brand has rapidly become a popular brand in the beverage industry, and has gained a large number of young consumers, as well as the favor of the capital.
The professional version of the eyewitness search data shows that since its establishment, Yuanqi Forest has maintained the rhythm of one financing a year. 2021 March 30, Yuanqi Forest completed a new round of strategic financing, led by the new shareholders of Warburg Pincus, L catterton and the old shareholders of Sequoia Capital China. Although the transaction amount was not disclosed, the valuation of Yuanqi Forest has reached $6 billion after the completion of this round of financing.
According to 36 Krypton's previous report, after the strategic financing completed on March 1, 2020, Yuanqi Forest was valued at $2 billion. In other words, in less than a year, Yuanqi Forest's valuation skyrocketed by about three times.
But now, Yuanqi Forest hit itself in the face.
On April 10, the official microblog of Yuanqi Forest released a microblog titled "a belated upgrade" to redefine "0 sucrose and 0 sugar" to consumers. It said that in the product labeling and publicity of milk tea products, there is no explanation of the difference between "0 sugar" and "0 sucrose", which can easily lead to misunderstanding. For most of the milk tea products produced from February 4 and all milk tea products produced from March 18, the packaging was changed from "0 sucrose, low fat" to "low sugar, low fat". From March 20 onwards, all of the Genki Forest Milk Tea produced no longer contains crystalline fructose in the raw material.
The microblogging of the Yuanqi Forest, it instantly caused a furor in social media. "Cheat my money even if it is, but also cheat me to gain weight." "Isn't this cheating consumers?" "Yuanqi Forest is to get rich by fooling around."...... In various platforms, the accusations against Yuanqi Forest are endless. As of the burning finance press, microblogging on the topic # Yuan Qi Forest apologized for publicity 0 sucrose # topic reading volume has reached 260 million, the discussion volume of 18,000.
For Yuanqi Forest's explanation, consumers and the industry are not sold. Kelly Weaver, a Zhihu user and master of epidemiology at the University of Munich, said that from the available research evidence, replacing sucrose with fructose is not just a matter of business integrity, but a practice that creates additional health risks for consumers.
On April 12, Xinhua commented that Yuanqi Forest's "reminder apology" and red packets could not soothe consumers' anger: "Apology useful? My fat doesn't accept apologies!" And, as Yuanqi Forest wrote at the beginning of the announcement, "a belated upgrade," the official is still playing word games, verbally apologizing, but in fact the core of the incident is still defined as a "product upgrade" rather than a "marketing accident.
Shanghai Everbright Law Firm, Tang Meng, lawyer, told Burning Finance that the ingredient information is now admittedly inconsistent with the forest, and it is indeed likely that consumers will mistakenly think that it does not contain any sugar and buy. According to Article 28 of the Advertising Law, the ingredient information of the goods is inconsistent with the actual situation, and has a substantial impact on the purchase behavior, it can be recognized as false advertising.
And according to Article 55 of the Advertising Law, if a false advertisement is published in violation of the law, the market supervision and management department shall order the publication of the advertisement to be stopped, and order the advertiser to eliminate the influence within the corresponding range, and impose a fine of more than three times the cost of the advertisement to five times the cost of the advertisement, and the cost of the advertisement can't be calculated or is obviously low, the maximum fine of one million yuan can be imposed.
In fact, not only the forest, in recent years, in the "high sugar accelerated aging, obesity" publicity cognitive, contemporary young people's "Buddhist" health consciousness is strong, "0 sugar", "0 calories", "0 sugar", "0 calories", "0 calories", "0 calories", "0 calories", "0 calories" and so on. " "0 card" "0 fat" has gradually become the pursuit of many young people. As a result, a series of new sugar substitute or even zero-sugar products came into being, Nongfusanquan, Coca-Cola, Master Kong and other well-known brands, have the corresponding products.
Sugar substitute that is, artificial sweeteners. According to Sanwan Capital, artificial sweeteners refer to chemical substances with sweetness through artificial chemical modification or synthesis, high sweetness, no calories, most artificial sweeteners are hardly transformed by the body and do not have nutritional value.
But this does not mean that some of the so-called "sugar-free" drinks on the market are really all "sugar-free", consumers need to be more careful when buying.
And the "skin" peeled off, the image of the forest in the minds of consumers, whether or not it can be the same as before, it depends on the forest next to win back the trust of consumers once on it. Obviously, this is very difficult.
Despite much criticism, the origin of Yuanqi Forest is still "full of energy".
On the afternoon of April 13, Burning Finance came to Chuzhou, Anhui Province, where the first self-built production base established by Yuanqi Forest, parked outside the north door of the factory several large trucks in an empty state. Trucks are in an orderly state, the front car into the factory, after the car will be driven on the factory door so that the factory staff on the vehicle sterilization, the front car loaded out, after the car will be driven into the factory, and so the cycle.
"It is not clear, the two days to and from the car (maximum allowable hauling mass of 40000kg container trucks) did not feel the reduction, and as usual about the same, are 40-50 car times a day." In the afternoon, there are still a few truck drivers waiting to load outside the North Gate entrance chatting, when Burning Finance asked them about the statement recently released by Yuanqi Forest as well as whether they understand the social debate, they all said they have no knowledge of this.
When the company further asked which region the goods were generally shipped to, one driver replied, "Chuzhou is a relatively large factory, and the goods are going to come from all over the country." According to the fire financial observation, parked in front of the door of several trucks license plate number for Su A and Anhui M, meaning that the vehicle is from Nanjing and Chuzhou.
"Everything is normal for us here." A Yuanqi Forest factory employees similarly said they were not aware of the situation, the employee told Burning Finance , from his observation, in recent days, the factory's production has not been affected by this.
"There will be no impact, we are still expanding production." The above employees told Burning Finance that the current production is only a project, and last year began construction of the second phase of the project is nearing completion, completed and put into production is also just around the corner.
In fact, Yuanqi Forest is also recruiting locally in Chuzhou. In Chuzhou talent network within the small program, Yuanqi forest company *** released 15 jobs recruitment, another human resources company released two jobs related to Yuanqi forest. In the 17 job postings related to Yuanqi Forest information, including beverage skills workers and packaging operator recruitment are up to 30 people, packaging operator monthly salary in the range of 4,000-7,000 yuan, while the beverage skills workers in the range of 6,000-7,000 yuan monthly salary.
Wang Li intends to come to the interview Yuanqi forest positions, he told Burning Finance, Yuanqi forest open salary benefits in the local area are called good, "Chuzhou local workers wages in 4000 yuan, but Yuanqi forest in addition to the employees to buy a five insurance and one gold outside the package food and housing, open the wage than other factories to more than a few hundred thousand dollars. "
Wang Li told Burning Finance that he only knew that Yuanqi Forest is a Netflix brand, but he did not buy Yuanqi Forest products, "four or five dollars a bottle of drink is a bit expensive, and also said that sugar-free, sugar-free drinks I do not think it will be good to drink to where, so never bought." Fuel Finance learned that many locals hold similar views, and several superstore staff said that the Yuanqi forest products, sales in the local area is not big.
Wang Li said, although he did not taste the Yuanqi Forest products, but from past experience he felt that this is still a good company, "beverage and food company development is good or bad mainly depends on the capacity, in simple terms, every day to the factory to transport goods, the more cars means that the company is better. I have worked in the silver heron before, the silver heron a day to transport goods trucks are not as many as half a day of Yuan Qi Forest factory."
Yuanqi Forest spent last year to build in addition to the second phase of the Chuzhou factory project, there are production bases in Tianjin and Zhaoqing, Guangdong. Yuanqi forest in East China, North China and South China spend a lot of money to build factories, and even plans to build factories in Wuhan, Chengdu and other cities in the next step of the motivation is clear, but one is to expand production capacity and innovation, and the other is to take the lead, to promote the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other areas of the market as well as to reduce the cost of transportation.
After all, in July 2020 Chuzhou production base was completed and put into operation, the production of Yuanqi forest products rely on all OEM production model. In Chuzhou local recruiting at the same time, the forest did not forget to BOSS direct employment on the release of the "beverage production in the factory" position, the position is mainly responsible for the factory production management.
Burn Finance visited Beijing, Guangzhou, Chuzhou and other places in the supermarket, on the shelves of the display of the Yuanqi Forest series of products, there are mainly six, of which, sparkling water, burning tea and milk tea series is the most common, and the other three products are full of points, fitness, light tea and aliens, is not a regular in the product.
Further look at the information on the bottle of Yuanqi Forest products, combustion finance found that the vast majority of products are commissioned by Yuanqi Forest to other parties, and there are several commissioned companies. Among them, Jianlibao, Huiyuan, Unisolid (for the unification of OEM), Toyo Beverages and other companies for the Yuanqi Forest products to do OEM production.
Interestingly, this time the Yuanqi forest problem milk tea series, in addition to the Chuzhou factory production, is responsible for OEM production, at the same time, the unity of the real is also a unified Assam milk tea commissioned by the party.
With "all normal" production base in stark contrast, is the angry consumers.
"Important misinformation, people with high blood sugar seriously victimized." "My family has diabetes, can not drink sugar, see they say sugar-free, they often buy and drink, this is not harmful?" "I still drink it every day and sell it at such a high price." "What else can be believed about a product that has been plagiarized from its name." ...... Under the microblogging topic, verbal attacks on Yuanqi Forest abound.
But Yuanqi Forest apparently didn't take the matter seriously, and in an April 10th microblog, they gave a seemingly perfect solution. "Anyone who has purchased milk tea from the official Yuanqi Forest e-commerce store, contact the store's customer service and you can receive a 20 RMB cash red packet."
This solution was directly pointed out by consumers "no sincerity". "Obviously false propaganda, said the compensation of consumers, but also to let consumers rush to find you, Taobao customer service many times has read not back to force the closure of the conversation ......" and encountered the above encountered consumers in large numbers, "my customer service whit Strawberry direct unread, 6 and a half hours, looking for several times, no one back at all, laugh dead", "customer service has read not reply, that sent me the significance of the text message in which ......"
Netizen Xiaojian told the burning finance, since the April 11 morning received a "a late red packet" message from the flagship store of Yuanqi Forest, she went to the flagship store of Tmall to communicate with customer service, but sent a number of messages to customer service, have not received a positive response from customer service, Xiaojian has now found the red packet registration link entrance to the registration of the information, as of press release, the amount of money The amount of money is still not accounted for.
Although Yuanqi Forest official said, "There are too many users of milk tea, and now all the accounts in the store are subject to risk tips for sending more red packets, so we will wait patiently". But this because of Yuan Qi Forest's milk tea products due to "0 sucrose, low fat" triggered by the word game, seems to have not subsided.
From its inception in 2016, Yuanqi Forest, with the concept of "no sugar, low calorie", the target group directly to the Z generation, in the strong marketing "momentum", Yuanqi Forest in the beverage market all the way forward.
Yuanqi forest in the marketing called "big money". According to Growthbox's product research report, in 2020, Yuanqi Forest **** counted online and offline spent 600 million yuan on marketing, and its advertising is mainly focused on variety shows and TV dramas.
According to the incomplete statistics of Burning Finance, Yuanqi Forest has sponsored "Our Band", "Sports Bar Junior", "Life in a String", "Life as a Boil" and other variety shows. 2020 Yuanqi Forest also spent 150 million yuan to take the right to sponsor the Spring Festival Gala at B station.
In addition to the variety arts, Yuan Qi Forest also took advantage of the wind of the "Sister Riding the Wave" hit in 2020, and invited the self-traffic Zhang Yuqi as a brand ambassador. According to the official information of Yuanqi Forest, stars such as Wei Daxun, Wang Yibo, Li Qin, Zhe Yiza and Sun Yi are also drinking Yuanqi Forest products.
This series of operations has deepened the impression of Yuanqi Forest in the minds of the public, especially young people, and has also made Yuanqi Forest favored by capital.
Eyeball check information shows that one year after its establishment, on December 19, 2017, Yuanqi Forest completed the angel round of financing, the investor is Challenger Capital. Since then, Yuanqi Forest has basically maintained a year round of financing at a high level.
In 2019, Yuanqi Forest completed the B round and RMB 150 million of strategic financing in March and October, respectively, in just half a year.
However, the rapid progress of the Yuanqi Forest, in fact, as early as before the microblogging announcement, about its "sugar-free" milk tea questioning has been endless.
Knowledge user Kelly Weaver, a master's degree in epidemiology from the University of Munich, explicitly categorized Yuanqi Forest's Milk Tea as being in the high sugar/high calorie group in her article, "Nutritional Value of Common Low-Sugar and No-Sugar Drinks in Supermarkets".
KellyWeaver said that in fact, the sucrose added to common beverages, and the fructose added to Yuanqi Forest Milk Tea, are both refined sugars. Therefore, nutritionally speaking, ordinary beverages with cane sugar is "added sugar", and Yuanqi Forest Milk Tea with fructose is also "added sugar". What's more, fructose is a worse sugar for health than sucrose.
And after its calculation, a bottle of 480ml of coffee-flavored milk tea, its energy up to 180 * 480/100/4.184 = 206kcal, the equivalent of a light physical activity of 18-49 years old women's 1/3 of the midday meal.
In addition to this, KellyWeaver said that the low GI of fructose, which is involved in the promotion of milk tea by Genki Forest, is purely a play on words to avoid the issue. "GI is the 'Glycemic Index' and you ingest fructose and then measure glucose, and that's not going to find anything?"
In addition to its milk tea products ingredients are questioned, Yuan Qi forest from the trademark to packaging are to go Japanese style, but the actual origin, factories and sales markets are in China's "pseudo-Japanese" storm has never ceased.
But at the time, Yuanqi Forest was probably busy building factories, and did not have time to put the word game and the "pseudo-Japanese" storm in the eye.
What kind of gold mine did Genki Forest unearth when it made its fortune with the concept of "sugar-free"?
According to IDF, the number of people with diabetes (20-79 years old) reached 463 million globally in 2019, and it is expected that by 2045, 700 million people will have diabetes globally.
IDF expects that by 2045, the number of diabetics in the world's largest countries - China, India, and the United States - will reach 147 million, 134 million, and 36 million, respectively.
With the development of consumer upgrades and the awakening of people's awareness of health, the hazards of excessive intake of sugar in the body have been the concern of more and more people. At the same time, China has also frequently issued a number of policy documents to promote a sugar-reduced life, advocating the use of natural sweet substances and sweeteners allowed by food safety standards to replace sucrose.
Thus, the wind of "no sugar" is rapidly blowing.
According to the "2021-2027 China Sugar-Free Beverage Industry Market Research and Investment Strategy Consulting Report" released by Wisdom Research Consulting, the market size of China's sugar-free beverage industry grew from 1.66 billion yuan in 2014 to 6.72 billion yuan in 2018, with a CAGR of 41.85%; by 2019, the market size of China's sugar-free beverages reached 9.87 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 46.88%. billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 46.88%.
Among them, sugar-free beverages have appeared in tea, carbonated beverages, soda, etc., which are consumed more frequently by consumers, and the players who have entered the market are not only the new-style beverages represented by Yuanqi Forest, but also Nongfusanquan, Coca-Cola, and Master Kong.
"2020 China Sugar Free Drinks Industry Analysis Report - Industry Competition Status and Prospect Evaluation Forecast" shows that in May 2020, China's sugar free drinks industry brands, Yuanqi Forest ranked first in terms of sales share, reaching 39%. And the year-on-year sales increase of Yuanqi Forest, Coca-Cola, and Nongfusanquan reached more than 300%.
April 13, burning Finance in Beijing, a large supermarket, found a variety of drinks, including the Yuanqi Forest's sparkling water, milk tea, Nongfushanquan's Oriental leaves, screaming, Coca-Cola's Yizumi, Coca-Cola, Sprite, AH!HA! Some of these drinks are labeled "sugar-free", some are labeled "0 sugar, 0 calories", "0 fat", and some are labeled "0 sucrose "
These are the most important things that you can do to help your family.
The fuel finance After comparing the eight so-called "0 sugar, 0 card" drinks, in addition to the Oriental leaves under the Nongfusanquan, the remaining seven products, more or less have added sugar, that is, sweeteners.
Among them, the addition of a sweetener drinks have Yuanqi forest of sparkling water and AH! It is not understandable why these "0 sugar" drinks, drink the flavor is not affected at all, or so sweet.
Two sweeteners were added to Coca-Cola's Ezekiel and Diet Coke, both of which add the artificial sweeteners acesulfame and sucralose (i.e. sucralose).
And Scream, from Nongfusanquan, and Milk Tea, from Yuanqi Forest, as well as Sugar-Free Coke and Sugar-Free Sprite, from Coca-Cola, all add three or more sweeteners. Among them, the scream added xylitol, erythritol and sucralose (i.e. sucralose); Yuanqi Forest's Milk Tea added erythritol, stevioside, crystalline fructose; Sugar-free Coke and Sugar-free Sprite added aspartame, acesulfame, sucralose.
These beverages advertised as "sugar-free" in the end is really "healthy and worry-free"?
An Jianhua, deputy director of Beijing Electric Power Hospital and member of the expert group of Beijing Student Nutrition Research Center, told Ignite Finance that the main difference between the different sweeteners added to different drinks lies in the difference between the extract and the sweetness.
Zang Quanyi, a national level public **** nutritionist, told Ignite Finance that the so-called sugar substitute is more conducive to good health is relative, not absolute. Its comparison with granulated sugar, it is true that the fluctuations in blood sugar and the formation of dental caries have less impact. But for many people to lose weight with the help of this "0 sugar", in the choice of drinks, not only to look at the sugar content, but also to look at the energy, that is, one hundred milliliters of drinks to provide the energy to the day should be the percentage of energy intake of how much.
At the same time, Zang Quanyi said, businesses in the publicity to guide consumers, but also can not emphasize "0 sugar". In addition, there are some sugar substitutes that are controversial in their own right, such as aspartame.
KellyWeaver expressed the same view.
KellyWeaver said that although a sweetener is a substance that only gives a food a sweet flavor with little or no energy, the available epidemiological evidence suggests that drinking sweetened beverages with non-nutritive sweeteners is not necessarily associated with a lower risk of diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.
At the same time, the health benefits to be gained from simply switching from sugary to sugar-free drinks without changing other unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits may still be very limited.
"But no matter what kind of drink, whether it contains sugar or not, it needs to be controlled and is not recommended to be consumed in excess." Zang Quanyi says that if health is a concern, drinking less or even no beverages is the best option.
"The 'sugar-free' claim that Yuanqi Forest has been making in the past is a 'false proposition', not to mention the fact that he himself has shown that it's not really 'sugar-free'. '." Industry experts Wang Li said, after this incident, "sugar-free" Yuanqi Forest can no longer in the minds of consumers "sweet" up, it is worth questioning.
*The title image is from Visual China. Xiaoyu, Xiaojian, Wang Li, Wang Li in the text are pseudonyms
*Disclaimer: Under no circumstances does the information or opinions expressed in this article constitute investment advice to anyone.