With the beginning of the Liqiu solar term, the hashtag “The First Cup of Milk Tea in Autumn” trended on Weibo, sparking a wave of new tea beverage consumption. This year, many new tea beverage brands have added health labels to their ordering pages. As competition in the new tea beverage industry intensifies, embracing health has become a new direction for industry development.
In recent years, the number of new tea beverage enterprises in our country has steadily increased, and the overall market scale has expanded. The homogenization of competition in the new tea beverage sector has become increasingly fierce. According to the 2023 New Tea Beverage Industry Research Report, jointly released by the China Chain Store Association's New Tea Beverage Committee and Meituan's New Food Service Research Institute, the national new tea beverage market size is expected to reach 149.8 billion yuan in 2023, and it will further expand to 201.5 billion yuan by 2025.
However, while some new tea beverage brands are rapidly expanding, they have also exposed certain issues, such as solely pursuing business performance at the expense of consumer rights protection. The China Consumer Association's report on the top consumer rights protection concerns in the first half of 2024 pointed out that multiple new tea beverage brands frequently issued apologies that trended on the hot search list. Issues such as the use of expired ingredients, poor staff responsibility, and chaotic store management processes leading to food safety problems were significant reasons these brands were exposed by the media.
In recent years, consumers' health awareness has been on the rise, and they have expressed concerns about the use of non-dairy creamers (milk essence), flavorings, concentrated fruit jams, and tea powders by some new tea beverage brands. According to data from iiMedia Research released in July last year, 49.4% of consumers would worry about health issues related to these products.
In this context, to stand out in the intense market competition, some new tea beverage brands have started to actively embrace “healthier options,” continuously improving the quality of new tea beverages.
In February, all stores of Teabreeze in the Shanghai region implemented a “Nutritional Choice” label, becoming the first tea beverage brand to use a nutritional grading system. The “Nutritional Choice” label grades beverages based on the content of non-dairy sugars, non-sugar sweeteners, saturated fats, and trans fats, ranging from grade A to D, with decreasing recommendations. This helps consumers quickly understand the comprehensive nutritional information of beverages and choose those with lower burdens.
Following the introduction of the industry's strictest “Four True Seven Zeroes” healthy tea beverage standards in July, Heytea released the industry's first caffeine content label on August 15th, calling for care towards consumers' Sleep health. It is understood that Heytea uses a “Caffeine Traffic Light” health label to publicly display the caffeine content in its products. Based on this, it provides guidance on the drinking time for different beverages, helping consumers choose personalized drinking methods according to their needs and physical conditions, reducing the difficulty for consumers in identifying and selecting caffeinated beverages, and assisting them in maintaining sleep health.
On August 11th, Luckin Coffee, which had publicly announced its entry into the tea beverage market, launched the Light Jasmine Light Milk Tea product, focusing on “real tea, good milk, and light burden,” accurately aligning with the trend of healthier options in the new tea beverage industry.
In response to this, industry insiders point out that the new tea beverage industry in our country has entered a new stage of development. Coupled with the deepening focus of the consumer base on weight management, nutritional management, and overall health management, the move towards “healthier options” is an inevitable trend for the industry. Therefore, in addition to competing on marketing strategies, expanding innovative categories, optimizing supply chain systems, and accelerating digital transformation, the new tea beverage sector should also transform towards “healthier options” based on consumer needs and introduce various health-focused products. Leading new tea beverage brands, which possess more resources, should further optimize, upgrade, and innovate their health-focused products, allowing consumers to Drink with confidence and enjoy healthier beverages.
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