China Focus: All Plants' oat milk launch, A2 milk marketing and kiwifruit popularity in China feature in our round-up

By Pearly Neo

- Last updated on GMT

All Plants' oat milk launch, A2 milk marketing and kiwifruit popularity in China feature in this edition of China Focus. ©Getty Images
All Plants' oat milk launch, A2 milk marketing and kiwifruit popularity in China feature in this edition of China Focus. ©Getty Images

Related tags China

All Plants' oat milk launch, A2 milk marketing and kiwifruit popularity in China feature in this edition of China Focus.

Fresh and functional: China plant-based firm All Plants churns out new oat milk products for younger generation

Chinese plant-based start-up All Plants is intending to expand its SKUs from 8 to 11 this year, with the latest products involving fresh oat milk, and oat milk with functional benefits to target younger consumers.

Its first brand All Oats was launched this year consisting of long shelf-life oat milk and flavoured oat milk selling D2C. It also has a B2B channel, producing oat milk for independent coffee chains and coffee schools.

Among the latest product launches are a fresh oat milk series, which requires cold-chain, and a functional oat milk to help with digestion.

According to Shirley Shen, founder of All Plants, the company aims to cater to the young Chinese population with plant-based products. Its consumers are those born in the 1990s and 2000s in China, accounting for 300 million people.

A2 beyond formula: Ireland’s Grass to Milk taps livestreaming route to market premium grassfed products in China

Irish dairy newcomer Grass to Milk is using a hybrid of social commerce and traditional e-commerce to market its new A2-protein, grass-fed milk products as it seeks to make inroads to the lucrative China market.
The firm says it will adopt a mix of livestreaming, reviews and content across various social ecommerce platforms and traditional e-commerce for its two products, a UHT milk for all ages, and a children’s milk.

Dr Paul O’Brien, commercial director at Grass to Milk Company, told NutraIngredients-Asia: “We are a small brand and a new entrant, so we want to localise our strategy.

We're going to use a hybrid of social commerce, and standard e-commerce strategy specifically targeting females between 25 to 35 years old, because they're one of the key decision makers in making purchases for the whole family​.”

Global kiwifruit king: Demand in China rising rapidly due to premiumisation and health trends

China is experiencing a boom in kiwifruit demand on the back of its premium and healthy connotations, despite already being the world’s top consumer of the fruit.

According to kiwifruit specialist firm China Shenshan Orchard Holdings (China Shenshan), China is the world’s largest kiwifruit-consuming country at 2.2 million tonnes, or 52% of total volume consumed, but demand is continuing to grow.

“China’s kiwifruit consumption far exceeds the figures recorded by the second-largest global consumer which is Italy at 337,000 tonnes – we outnumber them by sevenfold,” ​China Shenshan Executive Director David Zhao told FoodNavigator-Asia​.

COVID-19 dairy boost: Yili looks to product diversification after monumental profits leap in first half of 2021

China dairy giant Yili is looking to focus on the diversification of its product portfolio to ensure sustained growth after seeing a 42.48% jump in H1 2021 net profits, with the firm seemingly enjoying a boost due to COVID-19 health trends.

Yili recently unveiled its H1 FY2021 financial results, where it saw 18.89% year-on-year growth in total revenue to hit CNY56.5bn (US$8.78bn), and a very significant 42.48% yoy growth in total net profits to hit CNY5.3bn (US$823mn).

The firm’s Assistant President Dr Yun Zhanyou told FoodNavigator-Asia​ that the achievement of such financial success even at a time of instability has been due to two main factors – the growth of the dairy industry itself, ironically as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Yili’s proactive product upgrading and innovations.

“The flourishing growth of the dairy industry helped to boost sales volumes - the COVID-19 pandemic stimulated greater milk consumption in the Chinese market as consumers paid more attention to their nutrition, health and immunity. This provided China’s dairy market with more room for development,”​ said Dr Yun.

Food safety first: China issues guidelines for near-expired foods after anti-waste law boosts sales

The Chinese government has published formal food safety and consumption guidelines for products nearing their expiry dates, after a recently-implemented anti-food waste law increased sales.

Near-expired foods are generally pre-packaged foods which are close to but have not exceeded their expiry dates. Chinese consumers have shown rising interest in these products due to the associated cheaper price promotions and offers, particularly in supermarkets where sometimes whole counters are set up dedicated to the sales of near-expired foods.

China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee passed an anti-food waste law in congress earlier this year in April. Near-expired foods both fit the ideology of this policy, and are generally lower in price, so following the passing of this law, these products saw a boost in popularity locally, leading local authorities to develop specific consumption guidelines for these to prevent food safety incidents.

“Near-expired food is favoured by many consumers due to their lower pricing [so] we have developed these guidelines to give consumers better understanding and consumption practices of these [based on] scientific principles,”​ said China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) via a formal statement.

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