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The new wine making force is 10 RIOs away from the Yuanqi Forest.
By Qiao Xue and Zhai Yuanyuan
Source: Tech Planet (ID: tech618)
Image source | Visual China
Drinks for young people are becoming the capital battleground.
The new tea "Naixue's Tea" has been heard by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange recently, and Hong Kong shares are about to give birth to the "first share of new tea". Xicha queued up to go on the market to seek landing. China Post sold milk tea across the border, "Post itchy tea", and accurately stepped on the busy and crowded tea track consumed by young people.
Milk tea has become a new way for modern young people to socialize. However, in addition to milk tea, more and more capital, Internet giants and entrepreneurs are trying to make Amway young people, making low alcohol alcohol a new social hard currency.
Following the cross-border creation of a liquor brand "Follow Me" last year, BYTE Bounce has invested in the liquor product manufacturer Houxue Liquor Industry this year. In addition, Tech Planet has learned that Byte also has low alcohol liquor brands such as "Byte Castle" and "Inspiration Code".
Jingdong Digital Science has also participated in the alcohol e-commerce platform Somao.com this year. The influx of capital has accelerated the vigorous development of the liquor track. Public data shows that 27 liquor tracks will be financed in five months from 2021 to May, with a total amount of about 2.508 billion yuan. If the time axis is extended, the investment and financing of domestic liquor racetracks has exceeded 55 billion yuan in the 10 years from 2011 to now.
As far as the low alcohol liquor segment is concerned, at least 20 low alcohol liquor brands have obtained financing since 2016. Behind the brands of MissBerry Sweetheart, Bingqing, Likoubai, Luoyin, WAT Premix, there are star investment institutions such as Sequoia, Zhenge, Jingwei China, Tiantu Investment, Bertelsmann, etc.
Players are trying to cultivate a new market in the profit-making liquor circuit, making the low-alcohol liquor circuit a clocking position for young people, and thus creating a "vitality forest" with an annual revenue of 1-2 billion yuan. However, at present, low alcohol brands are far from the "Vigorous Forest" in terms of sales volume and brand popularity, and even numerous new liquor brands use the same OEM to produce low alcohol liquor, which is difficult to create a differentiated brand in the minds of users.
Making young people fall in love with low alcohol liquor is more like wishful thinking of capital at present.
With a market scale of 100 billion yuan, liquor making forces are rushing in
"This year's low alcohol liquor track is hotter than last year's, with faster financing, more active investment institutions and busy wineries," Zheng Bohan, founder of Lanzhou, told Tech Planet.
Data shows that in the first quarter of 2021, the sales of 2449 liquor brands on Tmall and Taobao increased by 100% or more, including 1415 low-grade liquor brands, accounting for 57.8%.
Different from the traditional three major liquors, liquor, beer and wine, low alcohol liquor usually refers to a new type of liquor in many categories, such as fruit wine, rice wine, pre mixed liquor and sparkling wine.
In the past two years, low alcohol liquor has gradually become the second growth curve of traditional liquor enterprises, the innovation testing ground of Internet upstarts, and the new battlefield of horizontal expansion of beverage giants.
As the production and sales of traditional liquor continue to decline, traditional liquor enterprises have focused on the lower degree of fruit wine series, trying to find new incremental markets outside the basic liquor market.
Wuliangye, the leading liquor brand, launched Xianlin Qingmei wine, pomegranate wine and other fruit wines as early as 2014; Luzhou Laojiao, Gujing Gongjiu and other liquor enterprises set up fruit wine companies integrating R&D, production and sales; The liquor myth brand Moutai launched the refined product "Youmi" blueberry wine last July. In the middle of May this year, Wuliangye New Retail Management Co., Ltd. launched fruit flavored liqueur and confected fruit wine "Wutiao".
Internet upstarts have also coveted the low alcohol wine market for a long time. Byte not only stepped down to become the brand of "Follow Me", but also invested in the liquor product manufacturer Houxue Liquor in March this year. In addition, Byte also has low alcohol liquor brands such as "Byte Castle" and "Inspiration Code", and constantly expands the liquor product matrix.
The beverage giant Coca Cola also expanded its product category from bubble water to bubble wine. On June 1, Coca Cola officially entered the liquor circuit and launched the first zero fat and low sugar alcoholic beverage TopoChico hard soda sparkling wine in China.
Low alcohol liquor race track has formed a arena for traditional liquor enterprises, emerging start-ups, Internet giants, beverage giants and other wine making forces.
Lin Yijia, the head of low alcohol liquor brand "Zouqingniang" O2O, told Tech Planet that he was firmly optimistic about the change of consumption trend and category trend of young people. In addition, an emerging market has not yet produced a wine that is truly accepted by channels and consumers. The founder has a 15+year background of an international brewery. Zouqingniang has launched pure natural fermented low alcohol liquor, Try to meet the demand of most young consumers for table wine.
It seems that the low alcohol circuit is a market that is expected to reach 250 billion yuan in 2027.
Zheng Bohan, the founder of Lanzhou, believes that the scale of low alcohol liquor is a new kind of liquor that can match the scale of beer. "Beer is also low alcohol liquor. The market for new low alcohol liquor can be as large as the scale of beer market."
The imagination space of the market scale of 100 billion yuan is constantly attracting investment institutions. At present, well-known institutions such as Sequoia, Jingwei China and Bertelsmann have launched low alcohol liquor projects. Low alcohol liquor has become the investment target that many investors are looking for. Huang Shuai, the investment director of Keystar Capital, said that he drank low alcohol liquor at a team meeting, which made him realize that the new low alcohol liquor has unlimited room for growth, whether it is in the personal acceptance of young consumer groups or in the future cultural vision. So they began to pay attention to the low alcohol circuit in April this year.
"The low alcohol wine segment has relatively large growth potential, although it may not be able to run too much like bottled water and vitality forest. But it is still no problem to grow a company with annual revenue of 1-2 billion yuan and valuation of several billion yuan."
However, Huang Shuai also admitted that in two months, there was no satisfactory project worth taking. Huang Shuai believes that Jiangxiaobai's "Meijian" is the most likely to come out, which is the closest to the standard of "the next vitality forest". "The sales of Meijian in Tmall and JD are over 100 million", but Jiangxiaobai has not yet been listed, and may not split Meijian independently.
The cost is 1-5 yuan. Do most low alcohol wines come from the same distillery?
"To be honest, we have never played at this track, and we don't think we understand it very well. We are not optimistic about it on the whole."
Low alcohol liquor market attracts a large amount of capital, but it is also rejected by many institutions. Liu Jiawen, the investment director of Inno Angel Fund, is not optimistic about the low alcohol circuit. In her opinion, the entry threshold of low alcohol liquor industry is too low, the technical innovation space is low, and there is no technical barrier. If you want to compete in team marketing ability, you need to burn a lot of money, which is difficult for early angel investment institutions. In addition, she believes that there are not enough consumption scenarios for low alcohol liquors.
"We don't have any special favorite projects".
The low threshold for low alcohol liquor start-ups is due to the fact that low alcohol liquor start-ups mostly rely on the OEM production mode. The shortest production cycle from low alcohol liquor taste development to product launch is only 1 day.
The "Fubixing" distillery has put forward the slogan of "products can be finished in one day" to provide brand and taste library for low alcohol entrepreneurial customers. Customers at different levels can customize according to their needs, and DIY match the types and tastes of finished drinks.
An owner of a low alcohol alcohol foundry told Tech Planet that their distillery currently produces products for three low alcohol alcohol start-ups. Two of them are funded companies, and one has not yet received financing.
Generally, the production cycle of a low alcohol liquor takes one month from the customer's demand, that is, what kind of product is needed, to research and development, wine testing, and finally to mass production of finished products.
Low alcohol entrepreneurs usually only need to participate in the initial wine direction and taste finalization. For example, customers need to first determine whether to produce fruit wine or sparkling wine, pre mixed wine or rice wine. Secondly, it is to determine the taste of low alcohol wine, plum flavor or litchi, peach. In addition to these flavors, customers can also request the distillery to directly copy the low alcohol flavors that sell well in the market, and the production capacity of the distillery can be realized.
The R&D and production link is completed by the distillery. The boss of the foundry said that their R&D personnel can prepare 70-80 versions of wine in the laboratory one day, and then select 4-5 versions to give the first version of the product to the customer, that is, the "tasting" link. If the customer has no objection, the distillery will give the customer another "final test" according to the version selected by the customer, and the production will be carried out after confirmation. If not, the distillery can continue to adjust the taste of the wine. "In terms of taste preparation, the most troublesome customer has repeatedly prepared for 8 months."
Low alcohol liquor has two production methods, one is base liquor preparation type, and the other is natural fermented liquor. The former is mostly based on sorghum liquor and other liquors, adding juice, sugar and other additives to produce a satisfactory taste. The latter is the direct fermentation of fresh fruit, and there is no mixing action in the middle. Although sugar will be added later, it is relatively natural fermentation. The two processes have different requirements for materials. The production cycle of fermented liquor is longer, so the cost is higher. The former costs about 20% less than the latter.
A bottle of low alcohol wine that sells for more than ten yuan costs 1-5 yuan. An entrepreneur of low alcohol liquor told Tech Planet that a bottle of low-quality low alcohol liquor can be produced at a cost of one yuan, but generally, the cost of blended low alcohol liquor is only a few yuan, and the gross profit is about 50%. "The cost of low price liquor can refer to companies like Budweiser and Heineken. Budweiser costs 3-4 yuan a bottle and sells it to dealers for 7-8 yuan. The dealers sell it to outlets for more than 10 yuan, and the outlets sell it to consumers at a higher price."
The production mode of low alcohol liquor directly determines the threshold of low alcohol liquor, so there is a disdain chain in the low alcohol liquor market: fermented liquor disdains concocted liquor. Fermented wine stands at the top of the disdain chain disdaining the unhealthy blending of wine, and the blending of wine complains that the raw materials of fermented wine are limited by season, taste and other factors, the supply is unstable, the taste is single, and the sustainable and large-scale supply cannot be guaranteed in the later stage.
But if the popularity of the market is the only criterion to test the success of the brand, young people will vote directly with their feet, and the mixed wine with more diverse tastes will win. Many investors and entrepreneurs told Tech Planet that wine making is more popular in the market.
Where is the "vitality forest" of new style liquor in the capital card battle?
The battle line for grabbing low alcohol glasses has begun.
A golden sentence is popular in VC/PE: to survive, you need water; If you want change, add some alcohol.
According to the Japanese social observer Miura Shinzo's "fourth consumption" view, the current Chinese consumption is in the transition period from the third generation to the fourth generation. Powerful products, high-quality services, and now cultural filters are added. Low alcohol liquor just meets the needs of more market segments, so it is more attractive.
The bubble rice wine, which has only been established for 3 months, told Tech Planet that it has contacted many capitals and is still in discussion.
In the market of low alcohol liquor, brands are generally young, but all have capital to support them.
In May 2020, Li Koubai, a low-grade liquor brand, received millions of dollars of financing from Zhenge Fund. Berry Sweetheart, which was founded less than a year ago, received two rounds of financing. In the same month, Bingqing, a green plum wine brand, completed tens of millions of A+rounds of financing. In September, Jiangxiaobai, with a valuation of more than 10 billion yuan, obtained round C financing and launched the fruit flavored low alcohol sorghum wine "Fruit Cube". In the first three months of 2021, low alcohol wine has received more than five times of nearly 10 million yuan financing.
At present, the last round of financing for low alcohol liquor brands is also concentrated in the angel round and the A round. Only Jiangxiaobai has obtained the C round of investment, and Jiangxiaobai is not only taking the low alcohol liquor route.
A VC engaged in new consumption investment told Tech Planet that capital is also cautious at present, and is still in the stage of finding and occupying the blank.
Compared with Yuanqi Forest, which has made a way in the field of bubble water, the path of development is faster. In October 2019, Yuanqi Forest received 150 million yuan of financing led by Longhu Capital and Gaorong Capital. In March 2020, Yuanqi Forest completed a new round of financing, and Sequoia China and Yuansheng Capital followed in succession; By the end of March this year, Yuanqi Forest had raised another 300 million to 500 million yuan, quickly obtained capital, opened up markets in a large scale, and seized shares. At present, its valuation is up to $6 billion.
On the other hand, in the low alcohol liquor industry, RIO, as an "old player" in China's pre mixed cocktail market, has won a victory over a number of competitors at the current stage. In 2020, RIO will account for 83.9% of the market in the pre mixed liquor industry, becoming an undisputed leader. The parent company behind Bairun has been established for 18 years. Reading Bairun's financial report in 2020, the data shows that the operating revenue of the pre adjusted cocktail segment in 2020 was 1.712 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 33.82%, accounting for 88.86% of the operating revenue.
According to the data from the 2020 Yuanqi Forest Dealer Conference, the sales volume of Yuanqi Forest will be about 2.5-3 billion yuan in 2020, and the offline channel sales target will be 7.5 billion yuan in 2021, which is the status of Yuanqi Forest that has only developed for five years.
The ceiling is not high enough to be fatal, and the fledgling low alcohol liquor is still under the double attack of immature supply chain and offline traditional channel pressure.
In 2020, the gross profit rate of cocktail RIO will be 65.37%, but low alcohol practitioners tell Tech Planet that emerging brands are far from being reached, and it is a very considerable level to control it at 20-30%. At present, the bargaining power over factories and channels is low.
The most important thing for the wine industry is the quality and process threshold, which requires relevant brewing technology reserves and liquor body reserves. The supply chain of high-quality products will become a moat. The relevant person in charge of "Meijian" told Tech Planet that although the Meijian brand was launched in 2019, it started to prepare at least four or five years ago, especially the upstream supply chain wineries, sorghum farms, and plum planting bases, The total investment of Jiangji Distillery has already exceeded 2 billion yuan.
Although it is a low alcohol wine, the core logic of the wine industry will not change, and consumers must rely on quality and taste to win. At present, low alcohol liquor relies on large-scale marketing to occupy the minds of consumers. Your family has an ins style, and my family has a national style, which is two-dimensional. Product homogeneity and scene limitations make it difficult to break the annual revenue of low alcohol liquor to 100 million yuan. The key to this battle is to have capital in. Without capital support, it is difficult to work.
In the new era of drinking, the "vitality forest" is still on the way, and the qualifying match is far from coming.
