The trend of premiumization of the ready-to-drink coffee market is emerging

In recent years, consumer demand has become increasingly diversified, and the ready-to-drink coffee market has ushered in faster development, with traditional coffee brands and cutting-edge brands launching ready-to-drink coffee products
.
At the same time, with the continuous improvement of coffee consumers' requirements for coffee quality, it has also promoted the upgrading of the ready-to-drink coffee market, and the trend of high-end ready-to-drink coffee has emerged
.

The data shows that the proportion of surveyed consumers who purchased ready-to-drink coffee drinks in 2022 reached 40.
6%, and the domestic ready-to-drink coffee market has grown rapidly in recent years, with a market size of about 9.
64 billion yuan in 2021, and is expected to grow at a growth rate of 15.
7% in the future, and the market size will reach 20.
41 billion yuan
in 2026.

The market development prospects are considerable

Ready-to-drink coffee is a concept juxtaposed with instant coffee and freshly ground coffee, mainly with syrup, milk powder and coffee as the main ingredients, supplemented by cream flavor and food additives to form coffee drinks
with different flavors.
The national standard generally used for ready-to-drink coffee sold in China is GB/T30767-2014 "Coffee Beverages", which stipulates that the caffeine content of coffee drinks and espresso drinks must ≥ 200mg/kg
.

According to the data, ready-to-drink coffee first entered the domestic market in 1998, and foreign brands such as Nestle, Starbucks and Suntory quickly entered coffee shops, supermarkets and other retail terminals, opening up the canned and bottled coffee market
.
With the rapid development of the domestic coffee market, many brands have flocked to the ready-to-drink coffee track
.
At present, COSTA, Wahaha, Nongfu Spring, Unity, Yili, Tims China, Never Coffee, etc.
have all been involved
.
In the current ready-to-drink coffee market structure, Nestlé still firmly occupies the first position with a first-mover advantage, and Starbucks is in second place
.

China's ready-to-drink coffee accounts for 10% of the entire coffee market, although the proportion is not large, but the development prospects are considerable
.
Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said that the rise of ready-to-drink coffee boom meets the needs of the new generation of consumers, overall, domestic coffee consumption is still in its infancy, the market still has a large incremental space, and for ready-to-drink coffee there is also an opportunity to further expand, industry competition will become increasingly fierce
.

Convenient drinking brings advantages

The survey found that the packaging type of ready-to-drink coffee is mainly small volume, mostly in 200 to 300 ml
.
Common ready-to-drink coffee mostly uses aluminum bottles or PET bottles, which can be stored at room temperature, and only some products with fresh milk need to be refrigerated and stored, which is convenient for consumers to drink
to a certain extent.
Some consumers said that ready-to-drink coffee does not need to brew, grind, heat and other pre-steps, and its characteristics of "no spilling, no scalding" allow people to bring a cup of coffee anytime, anywhere, which is very convenient
.

Chen Yun, a senior analyst at Tianyancha Research Institute, said that most of the consumers of ready-to-drink coffee are young people, they like to innovate and try new things, but they are not willing to wait and make their own coffee, and the consumption form of click-and-go is also suitable for office workers, who can drink delicious coffee without delaying work time, killing two birds with one stone
.

According to the "2022 Overview of China's Ready-to-drink Coffee Industry" released by Toubao Research Institute, in terms of consumption preferences, the important decision-making factors for purchasing ready-to-drink coffee are high portability, time saving, catering use, afternoon tea needs, etc
.

Target changes in consumer demand

According to the data released by Toubao Research Institute, the ready-to-drink coffee market developed earlier and had strong user stickiness, and the current status quo is that the degree of market concentration is high, such as the industry CR2 (the sum of the market share of the top 2 companies in terms of market share) reached 64%
in 2020.
In the face of this market pattern, in order to better "share a piece of the pie", some brands are also actively promoting product differentiation and high-end development to meet the needs of
different consumers.

In terms of differentiation, just taking the coffee and dairy raw materials in the product as an example, a search on the e-commerce platform found that the materials used in different ready-to-drink coffee products are different, some are labeled with instant coffee, some are labeled with coffee powder (beans), some are labeled with coffee extract, and some are marked with the origin and variety of coffee beans; In terms of dairy raw materials, some use vegetable fat powder, and some are milk powder or milk
.

The trend of premiumization may be related
to the pursuit of quality by coffee consumers.
According to a report released by Ipsos, 45% of consumers want to optimize milk sources and 44% want high-quality coffee beans, which also reflects that the high-end development of ready-to-drink coffee meets the needs
of some consumers.

The trend of premiumization has brought about a significant increase
in prices.
Some products that were originally about 5 yuan, after claiming raw materials and process upgrades, the price rose to 10-16 yuan, such as Starbucks Frappuccino Coffee 281 ml priced at about 16 yuan, the price has caught up with some freshly ground coffee
.

China Food News(2023.
01.
16.
07)

(Responsible editor: Luo Chen)