How far is adult milk powder from "applauding and applauding"?

With the continuous decline of the domestic birth rate in the past two years, the "fight" in the infant formula milk powder market has become more and more intense, and anxious milk powder companies will extend their tentacles to the adult milk powder market as a new growth point
。 In the past six months alone, a number of milk powder companies have successively launched adult milk powder brands or new products: in July 2022, Jiabaiite launched a series of "Baohu" milk powder for middle-aged and elderly people; In September, Danone launched its first series of middle-aged and elderly milk powder products "Dare to Take" for the Chinese market; In October, Junlebao comprehensively upgraded the product line of adult milk powder brand; In December, Feihe's adult milk powder brand Aiben launched a new product.
.
.
Although milk powder companies are so actively arranged, it is difficult to hide an embarrassing status quo - adult milk powder is still a niche market with a narrow audience in China, and it is necessary to repair both inside and outside in order to break through the bottleneck
.

The adult milk powder market started the year with outstanding performance

I don't know when the adult milk powder display cases in several large supermarkets in Beijing are much larger than before, and adult milk powder products such as Nestle, Yili, Mengniu, Feihe, and Junlebao are on display
.

With the Spring Festival approaching, in a Wal-Mart supermarket in Xicheng District, Beijing, new products such as Feihe Aiben and Junle Baole Calcium were launched, attracting many onlookers, and there were also promoters who introduced product advantages and recommended products on the spot
.
A milk powder distributor revealed that in its area, products including Mengniu, Feihe 1962, Nanshan adult milk powder and other products are doing promotional activities
.

Wang Jingxuan, founder of the mother and baby brand Ximi Beibei, found that the sales of adult milk powder in 2022 increased a lot
compared with the previous two years.
For a single mother and baby store, the sales volume of adult milk powder in stores with better performance can reach several times that of previous years, and many mother and baby stores that did not sell middle-aged and elderly milk powder before have now begun to sell
.

Independent dairy analyst Song Liang revealed that adult milk powder has recently been sold more hotly, and Feihe Aiben, Junle Baole Calcium, Mead Johnson Daily Enjoyment, etc.
have achieved good sales performance
.
This may be because consumers have resumed visiting relatives and friends, giving adult milk powder as gifts to friends and relatives
.
He believes that at present, consumers attach great importance to the improvement of their own immunity, and it is expected that during the Spring Festival, children's milk powder, middle-aged and elderly milk powder will have better market performance
.

Why does this once inconspicuous track attract many milk powder companies to enter? Some insiders said that in the past two years, the number of newborn infants and young children in China has further declined, resulting in the market capacity of the infant formula industry facing shrinkage
.
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of births in China in 2021 was 10.
62 million, about 40%
less than the 18.
83 million in 2016.
In 2022, the infant milk powder industry has not completed the bottom rebound, and the market scale growth has become more and more weak, and the entire market has entered the stage of stock competition, among which Feihe, Ausnutria and other milk powder companies have carried out "destocking" operations
.

In addition, in March 2021, the National Health Commission released a new national standard for infant formula food series, and 2023 is a key year
for the landing of the new national standard and the registration of secondary formulas.
Earlier, industry insiders predicted that the new standards with stricter requirements will trigger a new round of reshuffle, and one-third of infant milk powder brands will be out, even some mainstream big brands
.
Therefore, the layout of the adult milk powder track, which still has huge incremental space and development potential, has become the second growth curve
that anxious milk powder companies are actively looking for.

Public data shows that in 2022, the market size of adult milk powder will be about 20 billion yuan, only one-tenth of infant milk powder, but from the perspective of audience group, the potential users of adult milk powder are much higher than infant milk powder
.
On the one hand, middle-aged and elderly people, as the main consumers of adult milk powder, the number of groups is increasing
.
At present, there are 254 million people aged 60 and above in China, accounting for 18.
1% of the total population, and the trend of population aging is still accelerating
.
On the other hand, as young people pay more and more attention to health preservation, some post-90s and post-00s generations have gradually shown their enthusiasm
for the purchase of adult milk powder.

Although at present, adult milk powder is still a niche market with a narrow audience in China, and the performance support for new layout enterprises is also limited, but as Song Liang analyzed, the adult milk powder market may usher in a blowout development
this year.

Adult milk powder "applauded or not"

Song Liang introduced that up to now, China's adult milk powder has experienced three stages
of development.
The first stage was from the 90s of the 20th century to 2008, when some leading milk powder brands laid out first- and second-tier markets to fill the gap
of adult milk powder nutritional products.
The second stage is from 2008 to 2018, when adult milk powder enters a relatively rapid development period and achieves omni-channel coverage
.
It is currently in the third stage, and the market has entered a new round of chaos
.

"Why is there no milk powder for my age?" "That's because, of course, you young people don't care about your body
.
" On the "Talk Show Conference" program, stand-up comedian Zhang Boyang's joke about adult milk powder revealed the current situation
of adult milk powder "applauded or not seated".

On the one hand, affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, consumers' consumption awareness of adult milk powder has been improved, and the nutritional value of milk powder has been recognized by many consumers; But on the other hand, as a long-standing sub-category, the market size of adult milk powder has not achieved breakthroughs, and there are no professional brands and products for young people
.
Therefore, it is not easy
to dig gold in this relatively barren land.

First of all, due to the difference in eating habits, domestic residents, especially middle-aged and elderly people, generally do not have the habit of drinking milk, a considerable number of Chinese people have lactose intolerance, and a considerable number of groups are not accustomed to the taste
of pure milk and milk powder.
Such long-established tastes and habits are difficult to change
through consumer education.

Secondly, compared with infant milk powder for infants and young children, the product demand of domestic residents for adult milk powder is not rigid, more similar to basic nutrition and supplements, and its functional positioning is more limited to "iron and calcium supplementation"
.
Therefore, in the past, the price of mainstream adult milk powder was generally not high, mainly low-end products, and it was difficult to compare
with infant milk powder.
Taking Yili as an example, the daily activity price of Jingdong Shangyili milk powder Golden Lingguan series infant formula 1 stage 900 grams is 259 yuan / can, while the daily price of Yili Xinhuo middle-aged and elderly selenium-rich multi-dimensional high-calcium formula 900 grams is 88.
7 yuan / can, the former is almost 3 times
the price of the latter.

Due to these reasons, the profitability of adult milk powder is much lower than that of infant milk powder, so in the past, the motivation of dairy companies to enter this segment was not strong, and the competition in the track was relatively moderate
.
And because its market regulatory standards are not as strict as infant milk powder, the market is even more mixed
.

There are also clear differences
in terms of channels.
According to Frost & Sullivan's data, mother and baby stores, as the main sales channel for infant milk powder, account for nearly 70%
of sales.
According to Kantar Worldpanel, the largest purchase channel for adult milk powder is online shopping, accounting for 26% of total sales; It is followed by hypermarkets and supermarkets, accounting for 20.
3% and 18.
8%
of sales in 2021, respectively.
This is also a new challenge
for dairy companies that are newly deploying adult milk powder.

In addition, adult milk powder categories include whole family milk powder, middle-aged and elderly milk powder, student milk powder, women's milk powder, special population milk powder, compared to infant milk powder products only need to impress parents, adult milk powder enterprises need to target the elderly, middle-aged and elderly, pregnant women, young groups and other groups of long-term market education, each group is limited, but each group needs specific consumer education, the difficulty increases several times
.

More subdivision, more professionalism, more scientific into the trend

Industry insiders believe that in the context of the shrinking milk powder market, the adult milk powder track with growth potential is still an incremental space
that milk powder companies must compete for.
In the future, with the accelerated development of the aging of the Chinese population and the continuous enhancement of residents' awareness of healthy consumption, the users of adult milk powder will be much higher than that of infant milk powder
.
Similarly, the mixed players and low market concentration also mean that the competitive landscape of the industry has not yet been finalized, and there are still great opportunities
for new entrants.

In response to the problem of low price and weak profitability of adult milk powder, players have also made surprising moves in high-end, differentiation and technology: in addition to milk and goat milk, Yili and Mengniu have launched camel milk powder with higher nutritional value; The nutrients added range from the earliest high iron and high calcium, to bovine colostrum, lactoferrin, prebiotics, dietary fiber, etc.
, as well as low-GI milk powder for consumers who need to control blood sugar
.

Mou Shanbo, chairman of Yipin Dairy Group, once said that although the epidemic has further improved the national nutritional needs and nutritional awareness, it is difficult for adult milk powder to make up for the impact
of the decline in the infant milk powder market in the short term.
Adult milk powder may have more good performance in the 5-10 year dimension, even exceeding the market space
of infant milk powder.

The battle is in full swing, how to break the game? Song Liang believes that in order to develop benignly, adult milk powder needs to grasp the general direction of professional nutrition, precision nutrition and functionalization, closely follow the trend of national health, take clinical experiments and scientific and technological literature as the core, accelerate the research on national basic nutrition and professional nutrition, and quickly adjust from low-level homogeneous competition to professional nutrition, so that the functionality and nutrition can achieve real differentiation
.

In view of the current health pain points of adults, dairy companies are focusing on optimizing the formula of adult milk powder products, adding functional ingredients in a targeted manner, and meeting the needs
of target groups more comprehensively 。 For example, in view of the common blood sugar, mobility, cardiovascular and other health problems of middle-aged and elderly people, Yili Xinhuo has launched 3 customized formula milk powders: sugar relief, bone energy and heart life; Danone said that its middle-aged and elderly milk powder "starts from the aspects of intestinal health and diversified nutrition", aiming to carry out nutritional intervention from the early stage of aging; Jiabaiite promoted two middle-aged and elderly goat milk powders, focusing on immunity and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health needs, respectively; Feihe launched 4 adult functional milk powder products, mainly aimed at the health needs
of middle-aged and elderly people in terms of immunity, cardiovascular, bones, blood sugar and other aspects.

Song Liang believes that with the advent of the era of professional nutrition, the transformation of adult milk powder from basic nutrition to professional nutrition will be an inevitable trend
.
At the same time, consumers' awareness of professional nutrition adult milk powder also needs to be quickly followed up to solve the problem of
consumers' lack of confidence in adult milk powder.

(Han Songyan, comprehensive arrangement)

China Food News(2023.
01.
13.
02)

(Responsible editor: Han Songyan).