From zero-sugar soda to zero-sugar wine, this generation of young people want to be “unburdened” slightly drunk?

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A new generation of wine consumers is craving a little drunk and low-fat.

Written by Li Xuanqi, edited by Li Jinlin

Source: Zinc Scale

Contemporary young people’s requirements for “happy water in a fat house” have changed. From milk tea and coffee to soft drinks, the concept of sugar-free and sugar-replacement has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Many young people are accustomed to first looking at the “Zero Sugar” label when choosing in the freezer, or whether there is “erythritol” in the ingredient list.

Today, not only drinks, but wine as well. From sparkling wine to beer, in this era where young people must “morning C and evening A”, young people who want to maintain a good figure and yearn for a little drunk are falling in love with sugar-free wine.

Many beverage brands have noticed this change early on. Not only foreign companies such as Suntory and Kirin have launched sugar-free beers, but also domestic brands including “10:15”, “BlueHour” and “Sound Cup”. Many low-alcohol brands have launched sugar-free sparkling wines that use erythritol instead of sucrose.

Slightly drunk and low-fat, young people want to have both

In the home of “post-95” Qiao Yin, what is necessary in the refrigerator is not vegetables and fruits, but various brands of coffee liquid and various types of wine.

“Quickly mix a glass of iced Americano before going to work in the morning, in order to survive and insist on being a social animal, and slowly drink a bottle of cold beer or a glass of low-alcohol fruit wine before going to bed at night, in order to have a good rest.” After graduation, Qiao Yin lived in a family in Chengdu. Companies with good external impressions do content operations and work at a fast pace. They need to spend a lot of time and energy in the conference room every day, and only after the meeting has time to officially start the work in your hand, so overtime is common, “If everything goes well every day, , can get home around 11, wash up in a hurry, just want to do one thing – have a drink.”

Although Qiao Yin’s house has plenty of drinks, she is rarely drunk, and often stops when she is slightly drunk. “On the one hand, I can’t get drunk because I have to go to work the next day. On the other hand, I don’t like the feeling of being drunk.” Therefore, when Qiao Yin chooses alcohol, he tends to prefer low-alcohol alcohol. “The demand is clear, it is easy to enter, and the degree is low.”

There are many more “Joyins”. According to the “2020 Young People’s Drinks Consumption Report”, the post-90s and post-95s are now the only people in the wine consumption market with an increased proportion of consumption. Low-alcohol alcohol has become the “first drink for young people”, and the report also pointed out that the growth rate of female consumers is significantly higher than that of males.

For “Qiao Yin people”, the drinking habit has long since changed from the traditional wine table culture of “one sip, no drunk, no return” to “moderate drinking, healthy and slightly drunk”.

And recently, Qiao Yin added a requirement when choosing wine, “zero sucrose”. The reason is very simple, “Many wines, including beer and fruit wine, can easily make people gain weight. I can no longer allow myself to gain weight. I am already overworked and fat, plus drinking fat, it is really not good.” Therefore, when When Qiao Yin swiped on the short video platform, sparkling wine and beer that claimed “zero sugar and zero card”, “use sugar substitute, no burden”, immediately decided to order a try.

Like Qiao Yin, Cheng Kai, who loves fitness, has recently bought a lot of zero-sugar wine. “I used to like drinking, but because I need to exercise and eat very healthy and moderate, I haven’t had a drink for a long time.” When Cheng Kai saw a fitness blogger recommending zero-sugar wine, he immediately placed an order. .

An important background is that young consumers’ consumption habits of “sugar control” have been cultivated through the previous reform of beverages such as soda and milk tea. In the past few years, a large number of soda brands represented by Yuanqi Forest have begun to The signboard of “zero sugar, zero calories and zero addition” has been hit, and “Happy Fat House Water”, including Coke, has launched a zero-sugar version; almost all milk tea brands have followed suit with “customized sugar content” and You can choose whether to replace it with “0-calorie sugar”… At the same time, young people are no longer unfamiliar with sugar substitutes such as erythritol, sorbitol, and aspartame, and even form a kind of “sugar substitute = no burden” “impression.

For this reason, it is easier for “Joyins” to open their defenses against sugar-free sparkling wine and non-alcoholic beer. On Xiaohongshu, there are already 2,000+ notes on sugar-free sparkling wine, most of which mention “clean ingredient list”, “share it with the fat-reducing party!”, “zero sugar sparkling wine that can also be drunk during fitness”, “Suitable for alcoholic girls during the fat loss period”…

It is not difficult to see that a new generation of wine consumers is eager to have both mildly drunk and low-fat, and this has given many wine brands new development space.

From low to zero sugar, do you want to become a “vigorous forest” in wine?

In fact, before the zero-sugar story took off on the booze track, a slew of new brands pouring into the track focused on low-alcohol drinks. Since the end of 2019, dozens of brands have been established one after another, and all kinds of financing information have come one after another. Brands such as Berry Sweetheart, 10:15, and Kongka frequently appear in the industry briefings of various media platforms and investment companies.

Among them, according to the industry and commerce information platform, the low-alcohol wine brand launched by Shanghai Yuliang Liquor Industry, which was established in 2020, completed the angel round and the Pre-A round of financing at the end of 2020 and October 2021 successively at 10:15; established in 2019 Berry Sweetheart, a fruit wine brand in September, quickly completed the A round, A+ round and B round of financing in 2021…

The data is more intuitive – according to the “2020 Low-Alcohol Industry Market Prospect and Status Analysis” report released by the China Research Institute, the consumption growth rate of China’s low-alcohol market in the past two years has been more than 50%.

As previously written by “36kr”, when low-alcohol wine is inspired by scenes such as living alone, drinking, etc., it is endowed with different emotions such as “exquisite” and “healing”, which makes the whole low-alcohol wine track quite imaginative, and even attracted by some market participants It is considered to be expected to run out of the next “Moutai”, which has also attracted many food and beverage giants and new brands to enter the market one after another, and even Moutai has joined the melee.

However, one side is the seemingly booming market prospect, and the other side is the homogeneous design and marketing channels. Although there are many brands, it is not easy to stand out. “36kr” also mentioned in the report that compared with the market share of low-alcohol liquor in the United States, Japan and other countries, the domestic market cultivation of low-alcohol liquor is limited by the low repurchase rate and insufficient offline channels. For people, early adopters do not equal the repurchase rate. “Many top brands have only three to four points of repurchase rate.”

Therefore, it is not difficult to guess that it is in such a situation that many low-alcohol wine brands, including 11:15, BlueHour, greater than or equal to Jiuhe, and Xiangbei, have launched sugar-free bubbles with erythritol instead of sucrose. Pre-mixed wines, etc. Even Ruiao RIO, which has always been known as “Little Sweet Water”, has also launched a 0-sugar product before. In order to highlight this selling point, Ruiao also bolds white characters on a red background on the bottle of this wine. Highlight “0 sugar”.

Obviously, they are trying to attract the attention of a larger user base and capital by telling a new story of “zero sugar”. After all, the financing progress of many low-alcohol brands is still stuck in 2021. Among them, in addition to the 10:10 and Berry Sweetheart mentioned above, the current financing information of Xiangbei, which was established in 2019, also stays in April 2021, and brands such as Kongka and Luoyin have not yet received capital. favored by the market.

The “zero sugar” story, which has been proved feasible by Yuanqi Forest on the soda track, has become a model for major low-alcohol wine brands. Zinc scale noticed that the current zero sugar wine homogenization is also more serious.

From the category point of view, it mainly focuses on pre-mixed sparkling wine, and from the taste point of view, the main flavors of strawberry rose, lemon ginger, cherry blossom lychee, white peach oolong, whiskey and other flavors at 10:10 p.m., BUF2 zero-sugar sparkling wine launched by Ring Cup It is also the main whisky lemon flavor, while Bluehour is the main five flavors of white peach, lemon, grape, grapefruit and jasmine gin…

From a publicity point of view, it is also extremely similar. Not only should the bottle be marked with “0 sugar and 0 fat” and lower calorie data, but also “low alcohol” and “zero sugar and no burden” will be emphasized on major marketing channels. .

In fact, judging from the sales data of e-commerce platforms, the current sales of sugar-free wines are not experienced: the “Bubble Monster Series” at 11:15 and the “Social Death Series” with a slightly higher degree are currently monthly. The sales volume is about 400 pieces; the monthly sales volume of 94 cans or more is 100 pieces, while the sales volume of other combination packs does not exceed 50 pieces; the monthly sales volume of most products of Xiangbei is single digit…

“Because to be honest, the premium is still quite high. Generally, the price of a 330ml bottle of low-alcohol zero-sugar wine is about 10 yuan. Compared with ordinary low-alcohol wine or beer, the price/performance ratio is not high, so many people may It’s just a taste when there are activities.” After Qiao Yin tried several brands of zero-sugar wine, she did not repurchase it again, “After all, even if there is no sugar, there are still calories. If you really want to lose fat, you still have to Control amount.”

From happy water to wine, how long can a zero-sugar “pseudo-proposition” composition be written?

It is undeniable that the market potential of zero-sugar beverages is still in the period of excavation. The “2022 China Zero Sugar Healthy Diet Market Research Report” released by iResearch predicts that my country’s sugar-free beverage market will reach 30.1 billion yuan in 2026, about double that in 2021, and the CAGR from 2022 to 2026 will be 15.6% (The growth rate is relatively slow), compared with the previous five years, it belongs to a stable and high-speed development period. At this stage, the public’s acceptance of sugar-free beverages has changed from the initial fresh taste to daily consumption.

Judging from the feedback on social platforms, the consumption habits of the new generation of consumers for “zero sugar” products have gradually passed the cultivation period. On Xiaohongshu, there are as many as 30,000 notes on “Zero Sugar”, covering product categories ranging from soft drinks to coconut milk to yogurt and cakes, while there are as many as 25 notes on “Sugar Substitute” ; On Weibo, there are 385,000 views under the topic of “Zero Sugar”.

This is not a phenomenon unique to China. According to NHK, a Japanese health management company surveyed that due to the increase in people working from home and the reduction in exercise during the epidemic, more than half of the office workers who participated in the survey reported that they gained weight during this period. To this end, various new products with “sugar-free” and “low-calorie” selling points in the Japanese food market have also emerged to reduce people’s “guilt” when eating and drinking.

However, it is worth noting that the public’s doubts about various sugar substitutes have never ceased. There are many similarities on Weibo, such as “Zero-sugar drinks do not mean no sugar” and “Zero-sugar drinks may be better than sugar-sweetened drinks.” More harmful”, “Zero-sugar products can increase the risk of diabetes” and other topics.

Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng once said in an interview with “People’s Daily Online” that the so-called zero sugar should refer to zero sucrose, so the product still contains sugar, and the sugar here is divided into 0 calorie and non-0 calorie, such as red thritol is a 0-calorie sugar substitute. How to define the concept of zero sugar and describe the health effects becomes a difficult problem when advertising to consumers.

The “Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Food Labeling (Draft for Comment)” previously issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation also clearly stipulates that “no added”, “zero added”, “no added” or similar words cannot be used in food.

Therefore, some industry experts also said that the description or promotion of products similar to “0 sugar, 0 fat” is not compliant.

In fact, Yuanqi Forest has also been pushed to the forefront for promoting its milk tea products “0 sucrose, low fat” before. It has issued an apology saying that its milk tea product logo and promotion did not clearly state the difference between 0 sucrose and 0 sugar. Caused a misunderstanding, “milk tea has milk, so it has sugar”, and said that the milk tea products have been revised and upgraded, that is, most of the milk tea produced from February 4 (2021) and (2021) 3 The packaging of all milk teas produced from January 18 was changed from “0 sucrose and low fat” to “low sugar and low fat”. At that time, many consumers directly shouted “I still paid by mistake”.

Even though zero sugar has always been questioned as a “pseudo proposition”, from the original sparkling water to today’s low-alcohol wine, brands eager to quickly seize consumers’ minds are still working hard to write new compositions. As for young people, they are still willing to do it for this There is a question mark about how long a class of composition “pays for”.

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