In talent shows such as "Youth has You", a large number of dairy products sponsored by Mengniu are used as votes.

For the voting code on the inside of the bottle cap, a large number of brand-new dairy products were unscrewed and then dumped.

We only read about buying bamboo slips and pearls in history books, but we didn't expect to see buying bamboo slips and pearls in our own time.

We don't need to discuss the negative social impact brought by this incident. But through this incident, let's review the evolution of china dairy.

There happened to be an article called "The Three Wars of Milk in China", which combed this course.

From 1990' s to now, the dairy industry in China has experienced three wars, all of which are launched around different sub-categories, namely, the fresh milk war, the yogurt war and the middle-temperature milk war being fought at present.

The milk war began in1990s. It was not a China company, or even a milk company, but Tetra Pak, a Swedish food aseptic packaging company, that incited this market and made drinking milk the forerunner of most people's daily habits in China.

In China from 65438 to 0990, aseptic packaging was not popular. Tetra Pak chose to cut into the food category of milk in order to win the big market of China. At that time, the milk consumption in China was either that dairy farmers walked around the streets carrying barrels of fresh milk every day, and you bought it yourself, cooked it and disinfected it before drinking it; Either the milk factory disinfects it and sends it to you in a glass bottle. Neither of these two methods can solve the problem of shelf life, and it is difficult to make it into a scale.

But as soon as Tetra Pak's aseptic packaging came in, the problem of shelf life was solved. Tetra Pak introduced a special packaging technology called "tetra pak" to China milk manufacturers, which can block air and light, and improve the shelf life of normal temperature milk to 6 to 12 months.

As a result, milk manufacturers who originally sold fresh milk within the radius of distribution capacity began to look for opportunities for nationalization. Milk manufacturers began to split into two groups:

The first school chose not to rely on Tetra Pak packaging, but to make low-temperature milk, using the low-temperature environment to keep the milk fresh. Why not make normal temperature milk that can hold tetra pak? Because the sterilization process of low-temperature milk is more particular, the nutrition and taste left for milk are stronger than that of normal-temperature milk.

However, the price of low-temperature milk is short shelf life, usually less than 7 days, and the storage and transportation costs are high. At that time, the representative players who focused on the low-temperature milk market were Shanghai Bright Dairy and Beijing Sanyuan Food, focusing on their respective regional markets.

The second batch of milk manufacturers chose to fully enjoy Tetra Pak's technical bonus and make normal temperature milk with a shelf life of more than 6 months. Although the nutrition and taste of normal temperature milk are not as good as that of low temperature milk, the cost is low, and the price is 1/4 to 1/3 of that of low temperature milk at that time. The representatives of this school are Mengniu and Yili, which focus on the national market.

The base camp of Mengniu and Yili is in Inner Mongolia, which was originally the golden milk source area of North China. Inner Mongolia has a low income level and is very sensitive to the price of dairy products. Due to the oversupply, the two companies unanimously chose to face the whole country. Wherever they go, they seize the market and compete for local milk sources, thus laying a dense sales network throughout the country. At that time, there was a term in the industry called "Mengniu Speed", which meant that in the first three years of Mengniu's business, it surpassed one peer every day on average, and its sales increased by 200 times in five years.

It can be said that in the first battle of China milk market started by Tetra Pak, the scale defeated the quality, and the normal temperature milk won the low temperature milk.

But at the same time, the market and consumers also paid a huge price for the rapid growth of manufacturers.

The national giants can't keep up with the management while expanding, so the pollution incident of the whole dairy industry broke out in 2008.

First, milk powder from Hebei Sanlu Group caused many babies to suffer from kidney calculi. After the intervention of the regulatory authorities, it was found that the products of 22 manufacturers such as Sanlu, Yili, Mengniu and Guangming all contained a carcinogen called melamine.

After that, the State Council issued a document to rectify the industry, improve the quality standards of dairy products, and enforce product testing.

This incident also promoted the supply-side reform of dairy industry in China.

At that time, the cost of self-inspection and sampling inspection of dairy enterprises rose from 5% of the total cost to 12%, and some enterprises would be sampled more than 2,600 times in half a year. Under such strict supervision, those small-scale dairy farmers, dairy factories and dairy enterprises are gradually unable to bear the cost and withdraw from the market.

In this way, the market share is concentrated on powerful giants.

In the next few years, Mengniu and Yili gradually carved up nearly 80% of the country's normal temperature milk share. Although the market concentration of low-temperature milk is also increasing, it is still limited by the distribution radius and cost. Therefore, at that time, the top three in the field of low-temperature milk were Guangming, Sanyuan and New Hope, but the combined market share of the three companies was still less than 30%. Guangming once wanted to open up the front line of normal temperature milk in parallel, but for various reasons, its business focus is still on low temperature milk business.

The second war is the yogurt war.

The melamine incident in 2008 made the whole China market have psychological barriers to the category of fresh milk, and fresh milk entered a difficult process of repairing trust.

During this period, milk manufacturers began to turn their attention to the new category of yogurt, hoping to redo the China market with yogurt and replicate the growth in the era of milk wars.

The opportunity of yogurt war is actually in the hands of light.

Although Guangming did not expand in the fresh milk market at room temperature, in 2009, it launched the first domestic yogurt product at room temperature, named "momchilovtsi".

This yogurt can be stored at room temperature for 5 months, breaking through the sales radius limit in one go.

In addition, there were no similar competing products in the domestic market at that time, so momchilovtsi monopolized the normal-temperature yogurt market until 20 14. During this period, its sales increased from 65.438+0.6 billion yuan to 7.93 billion yuan.

Around the Spring Festival of 20 14, Yili and Mengniu also launched competing products of momchilovtsi, which entered the track of normal-temperature yogurt.

As a result, the growth momentum of bright momchilovtsi came to an abrupt end at 20 15 and began to decline continuously.

By 20 19, the largest normal-temperature yogurt product on the market has become Amway of Yili, with annual sales of nearly 28 billion, while momchilovtsi has retreated to the order of 5 billion, from leading to following.

Why can't a distinct first-Mover advantage become a competitive advantage? The reason is that Yili and Mengniu laid a high-coverage national sales network in the last milk war, while Guangming did not. This sales network can play a decisive role in expanding product categories.

To what extent are the network capabilities of the two factions different? There is a famous scene to illustrate the problem. 20 10 The Shanghai World Expo was originally held in front of Bright Dairy, but the naming right of the Expo was won by Iraq 2 billion. At that time, a fund asked Guangming: Why not attend the grand event at your door? Guangming replied that the number of my outlets is not enough to cover the advertising expenses of 2 billion. You see, its sales network is not enough to support it back to its original position.

The disadvantage of bright network has not been reversed. Until 20 19, the number of its dealers was only 1/3 of Yili.

At this point, the yogurt war is basically over.

At this time, the pattern of China liquid milk market is that Yili and Mengniu become national enterprises, dominating the normal temperature fresh milk and yogurt market; Other local dairy companies carve up the low-temperature milk market.

This pattern seems to be stable, but by 2020, new variables have appeared at the policy level, which has triggered the third war being launched at present: the middle-temperature milk war.

In March, 2020, a new type of milk was added to the new food production license catalogue issued by the State Administration of Market Supervision: high-temperature sterilized milk.

This is something that didn't exist before.

The sterilization temperature of high-temperature sterilized milk is a little higher than that of low-temperature milk and a little lower than that of normal-temperature milk, which means that the shelf life and nutritional components are re-balanced between low-temperature milk and normal-temperature milk. This kind of milk is called medium temperature milk in the industry, and its shelf life is 15-25 days.

There are two reasons for this market:

First, after 20 14, the growth rate of normal temperature milk sales in China began to decrease. Since 20 17, the sales of normal temperature milk have even declined year after year. There is no market space for this category of normal temperature milk.

Why does it slip? Haven't China people formed the habit of drinking milk every day? The reason is that the cold chain logistics in China is becoming more and more perfect, and the take-away platform is becoming more and more prosperous. Therefore, the storage and transportation of low-temperature milk is no longer a problem, and it can begin to occupy the market share of normal-temperature milk with its superior nutrition and taste.

As a result, milk manufacturers began to calculate that under the existing logistics technology, as long as they develop a dairy product with a shelf life longer than that of low-temperature milk for one week, they will have the opportunity to occupy the whole country again.

The second reason is that when the General Administration of Market Supervision released the category of "high temperature sterilized milk", it did not give the same strict national product standards as normal temperature milk and low temperature milk. In other words, how to make medium-temperature milk, how to make it qualified, how to make it good, and the enterprise can have the final say.

So at this stage, you can start to see bottled moderate-temperature milk in the freezer of the supermarket.

Bright "fresh pasture", ternary "72°C" and Mengniu's "fresh talk every day" are all marketing and price wars. Both local giants and national giants have entered the market one after another, trying to seize the opportunity and become oligarchs in the new category of medium-temperature milk.

The middle-temperature milk war is still going on, and the outcome is still unknown.

These are the three important wars of China dairy industry that we reviewed.

Let's put aside the right and wrong of Mengniu and Yili, two milk giants, in recent years and look at their decision-making logic in three wars. They all chose to seize products that are closer to the public first.

In this big market of China, the scale is indeed larger than the high-end killer.

There is a saying that is very good:

In the past few decades, the development logic of consumer goods in China has been hidden in the population distribution: of the 654.38+04 billion population in China, only 80 million people live in first-tier cities. This is doomed that the main battlefield of local brands will never be in first-tier cities, but in the vast number of low-tier cities.

I think it's the low line area.

In the next 10- 15 years, China has a great task, which is to turn 300-400 million low-and middle-income people into middle-income people. This actually means that low-tier areas have the opportunity to completely get rid of first-tier cities and nurture their own national brands.

Recently, a new brand of milk tea named "Wang Ba Tea Record" was discovered in Yunnan, which simplified the formula of milk tea to only milk and tea, making it easy to copy and expand. This brand has opened more than 200 stores since 20 17.

If you are in a third-and fourth-tier city, you must learn to pay close attention to the business changes around you, and new business opportunities will appear.