Agriculture & Food

You may not think that the level of Chinese football has a certain relationship with eating salt.

Zhang Puhong, deputy director of the George Institute for Global Health (China), gave a speech on the topic of "salt intake". He said bluntly: "Africa and South America have lower salt intake than ours, but these countries seem to be better than us in football or racing."

Zhang Puhong ridiculed: "Perhaps, if Chinese football wants to break out of Asia and go to the world in the future, it has to reduce the salt first, maybe it will work."

In fact, not just football players, almost all Chinese people have excessive salt intake, which is "the most advanced level" on a global scale.

However, in recent years, affected by the upsurge of healthy eating, light salt has gradually gained popularity among young people.

According to Mintel's research data in 2019, 94% of Chinese urban consumers are trying to reduce their salt intake. Recently, Tmall Supermarket’s “chai, rice, oil and salt” lifestyle trend shows that households born in 1995 have less daily consumption than those born in 85. Eat 3 grams of salt, 30% of which use light salt soy sauce instead of edible salt after 95%.

It seems that the lifestyle habits of light salt, reduced salt, and less salt have formed a trend, which naturally attracts merchants and giants to enter the game. Moreover, compared with the "low-sugar" and "no-sugar" gimmicks that have been scrambled in recent days, light salt is much better.

Even so, can light salt really become the next outlet in the food industry?

trend

Generation Z, represented by the post-95s generation, eat less salt, first of all because of health needs.

Eating too much salt can lead to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and even death. This concept has a far-reaching impact. However, before that, the Chinese had one of the highest salt intakes in the world due to eating habits and other reasons.

Earlier, the World Health Organization proposed that the recommended value of daily salt intake per person should not exceed 5 grams, while the per capita salt intake in China is as high as 10.5 grams per day, which is more than twice the recommended value.

The key is that eating more salt increases the risk of disease.

According to a report from Southern Weekend, studies have shown that increasing the intake of 1.15 grams of sodium per day (that is, 2.875 grams of salt) can increase the incidence of stroke by 6%. At present, there are 11 million stroke patients in China. "If salt is not controlled, the number of stroke patients will reach 31 million by 2030."

Long-term high salt intake will cause higher osmotic pressure between gastric mucosal cells and the outside world, leading to direct damage to the gastric mucosa, prone to pathological changes, and risking gastric mucosal cells to become cancerous.

Conversely, reducing salt intake can lower the blood pressure level of the population, reducing salt intake by 50%, and reducing 2.5 million deaths from stroke, heart disease and chronic kidney disease globally each year.

For young people who are keen on health preservation, such health risks prompt them to change their living habits and consumption patterns and start to lighten, reduce, and reduce salt.

Secondly, the purpose of reducing salt in the Z generation is also to ensure that the appearance is online.

This is not a joke. Whether it's professional research or personal life, it is found that if you eat too much salt, it is likely to make your skin worse, your body edema, and become more and more ugly.

From this point of view, reducing salt intake has gradually become a group rigid need of the Z generation who pays attention to appearance. Some media even wrote an article specifically saying, “Eating too much salt makes it ugly, and people who love beauty have learned 5 tricks to reduce salt”, directly linking salt reduction with protecting beauty.

In addition, on platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu, celebrities, internet celebrities, and amateurs are all vigorously promoting healthy eating lifestyles. In doing so, they not only provide endless "examples", but also intentionally or unconsciously create , Deepen the modern people's anxiety about healthy eating.

Driven by this anxiety, young people tend to examine their body and life time and time again, and then make many changes including light salt.

On the other hand, the country is also promoting salt reduction.

Previously, the State Council issued the action requirements of the National Nutrition Plan (2017-2030), which proposed to achieve the goal of reducing the national per capita daily salt intake by 20% by 2030.

In 2018, China proposed a salt reduction strategy for the food industry for the first time. In April of that year, the Chinese Nutrition Society and the Institute of Nutrition and Health of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention jointly launched the "Guidelines for Salt Reduction in China’s Food Industry", suggesting that food companies, as practitioners of salt reduction work, achieve salt reduction goals in stages, and strive to achieve the goal of reducing salt by 2030. The average distribution of sodium content in similar processed foods continues to move down by 20%.

It is not difficult to see that self-demand, platform enhancement, national promotion, and multi-party efforts have made light salt a consumer trend.

In this process, keen businesses and food industry giants have already entered the game ahead of schedule, and they are all chasing business opportunities on this unpopular track.

Race track

A new track in the embryonic stage, merchants and food industry giants "run into the field" ahead of schedule, is related to major changes in consumption logic.

Simply put, with the development of productivity and social media, the era of consumer sovereignty has arrived. This requires businesses to connect users more efficiently, provide richer, more detailed, and better experience services around users, and truly rely on users. Demand is centered.

It is for this reason that the demand for light salt in Generation Z has led to the pursuit of merchants.

At the same time, consumers are indeed willing to pay for health and have already taken action. According to the CBNData "2020 Tmall Food Trend Report", 50% of consumers bought health-related products in their food consumption in 2019, and 83% of consumers took the initiative to adjust their diets to prevent health diseases.

In fact, Chinese and foreign giants have joined the ranks of salt reduction.

As early as 2010, Kraft Foods announced that it would reduce the average sodium content of the North American market by 10% within two years. In 2017, Kraft Heinz’s most iconic product, Heinz Ketchup, had a 40% reduction in salt content compared to 30 years ago.

Janeck Bergs, former product development manager of Kraft Heinz, said: "Our dream is to make our tomato paste, beans, and soups all adopt the concept of'no salt'."

In addition to Kraft Foods, Mondelez has reached a 5% reduction in sodium content of its investment brands in 2017, and will continue to implement salt reduction.

In 2016, Nestlé also announced that it would reduce the sodium content of its products that did not meet the Nestlé Nutrition Agency's standards by 10%.

In the same year, Mars announced that it would reduce the average sodium content of packaged foods by 20% in 2021, and PepsiCo launched a 50% reduced salt series of potato chips, using other low-sodium seasonings to match a variety of flavors, including original flavor, cheddar cheese and sour cream The taste, barbecue taste, etc., to make up for the weak taste caused by the decrease in saltiness.

In China, the most eye-catching performance is the soy sauce giant.

Soy sauce brands such as Haitian, Lee Kum Kee, June Fresh, and Jiajia have branded products such as reduced salt, light salt, low salt, and thin salt. When promoting these products, these companies will specify the amount of salt reduction, and will emphasize the ability to maintain the freshness of the products.

On the streets of Shaoxing, Zhejiang, New Retail Business Review found that on the billboard of Lee Kum Kee Light Salt Soy Sauce, the big letters showed the selling point of "25% less salt, less salt but no fresher", and a row of small letters on the lower left, stating "Salt content is better than Lee Kum Kee." Selected soy sauce is at least 25% lower. The data comes from Lee Kum Kee’s internal testing results.”

In addition to the soy sauce giants, more food businesses have begun to reduce salt. For example, there is a new kimchi brand that uses light salt and relatively refreshing kimchi to meet the needs of young people, package them into snacks, and sell them through online and offline channels.

The spicy noodles favored by young people have long been regarded as the "big salt field", Zhang Puhong pointed out: "Eating a packet of spicy noodles will exceed the salt intake on this day."

In response to this, in 2019, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued an announcement advocating the reduction of salt, oil and sugar in “spicy strips” foods to improve health. The media commented: "La Tiao is also starting to'health'?"

At first glance, the light salt track is a bit lively, but in fact, salty habits are deeply ingrained, and the light salt lifestyle and its consumer market need to be cultivated for a long time.

As Janeke Bergs said, only when consumers can gradually adapt to the low-salt taste can the reduction of salt be further developed. "In order for consumers to form new taste habits, all our suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers need to work together and learn from each other."

However, the reality is much more complicated.

Dilemma

Being on the same track is naturally a competitor. Working together is too idealistic. Starting from one's own interests, stepping up the "harvest" is the reality.

Many soy sauce companies have launched reduced-salt soy sauce to highlight the health label, but the price is often more than three times higher than that of ordinary soy sauce. The point is that some companies try to lie to consumers and “deceive” consumers.

The media once conducted an investigation. A "thin salt soy sauce" produced by Chubang has a sodium content of 997 mg per 15 ml, which "even exceeds a lot of ordinary soy sauce."

There are also some merchants who have precisely entered the children's food market. The products have basically not changed, but they have promoted marketing with the concept of salt reduction.

The media saw a "Xinhe zero-added salt-reduced natural treasure-friendly organic soy sauce" on an e-commerce platform. The customer service told reporters that the soy sauce has a relatively low salt content and is suitable for babies aged 1 to 3 years.

However, the reporter checked the ingredient list and found that the sodium content reached 500 mg per 10 ml, not only the same as ordinary soy sauce, but also not called "low salt"-according to the national standard of food nutrition label, every 100 grams or 100 Only when the sodium content in a milliliter of food is less than or equal to 120 mg is considered "low salt".

Obviously, these companies are just using light salt as a gimmick, hunting for health-conscious consumers and making them pay the "IQ tax."

"Sao operation" on the enterprise side, to a certain extent, will dissolve consumers' trust in the light salt circuit, and will have a negative impact on companies that truly put user needs in the first place.

On the consumer side, consensus is also difficult to reach.

As everyone knows, Gen Z has a continuous passion for hot pot, crayfish, stewed products, snacks, etc. In other words, young people’s diet is not balanced, but increasingly heavy.

Taking snacks as an example, data from the Dingman Research Institute shows that among the 77 common snack snacks, high-sodium snacks account for up to 95%. Among these, ume plums have the highest sodium content of all snacks, and the sodium content of one ume plum is 5905 mg.

Zhu Danpeng, a well-known analyst in the Chinese food industry, believes that the entire consumer group in China is now in a very contradictory situation. On the one hand, they have health awareness and health knowledge, but in fact, for the entire catering industry, the new generation is coming after the rise. The heavier the taste.

Like "the most expensive mask for the last night," Gen Z tried to reduce salt, but it was difficult to resist the temptation of heavy-tasting foods. This is the structural dilemma of the light-salt circuit.

What's more, salt is a condiment, which is scattered in various foods. Most salty foods are inseparable from salt. The true "salt replacement" has not yet been published. The health benefits of salt reduction cannot be seen immediately, but can only be subtle. .

This means that the target group of salt reduction is quite broad, and the period of action is very long, and the business has nowhere to use it.

Moreover, on the light salt track, there has not yet been a benchmark enterprise leading the consumption trend such as Yuanqi Forest. The driving force of the category has been greatly weakened, and the demand for light salt cannot be widely activated.

Of course, in any case, the effect of salt reduction on health is still just needed. This is the underlying logic of the light salt circuit.

Public data shows that Japanese food and beverage giant Kikkoman has continuously improved its formula and has successively launched more than 20 low-salt and reduced-salt products. By 2020, the sales of reduced-salt soy sauce will increase by 50% compared to five years ago.

What Chinese companies need is such determination and endurance. Enter the game early, respect "consumer sovereignty", stick to it for a long time, or break the predicament and promote the "optimal solution" of the outlet.