Agriculture & Food

According to the observation report of Huacheng Import and Export Data, on September 23, after a night of fierce wind, Beijing became a bit colder in autumn. However, the Starbucks selection flagship store in Sanlitun, Chaoyang District is still warm. The bright sunshine shines on the soft and comfortable leather sofa through the huge floor glass window, and customers in twos and threes gather here, either whispering or immersing themselves in work. In this first tier city in China, which is famous for its fast pace of life, the rich package of coffee aroma seems to slow down the whole hall.

A staff member of a coffee shop who had just finished the check out for the guests said: "Although there are not many guests in the afternoon on weekdays, it is different on weekends. At that time, there are no seats available from morning to night. If you want to find a seat, you have to wait for a long time. Sometimes the order quantity is too large, and we are busy behind the console."

In August 2020, Starbucks Beijing Sanlitun selected its flagship store for re opening. Before the upgrade, it was Starbucks' first flagship store in mainland China. Now, as the first flagship store of Starbucks in China to complete the upgrading during the epidemic, the re opening of this store is also considered by the industry as the performance and signal of the brand's continued overweight and investment in the Chinese market.

"After the transformation, decoration and product upgrading of the coffee shop, it carries more functions, especially social attributes. Many people regard it as a 'second sitting room' outside their home." In the eyes of the staff here, coffee is no longer just a common drink popular among young Chinese. It has become a culture and deeply integrated into the daily life of ordinary people.

At the global investor exchange meeting held on September 14, Starbucks officially released its strategic vision for 2025 China, launched a new value oriented growth plan, and added weight to the Chinese market. According to the statistics released by Starbucks, the number of Starbucks stores in mainland China has increased nearly 10 times in the past decade, and will reach 6000 by the end of fiscal year 2022. In the next three years, Starbucks plans to open 3000 new stores every 9 hours, covering 300 cities in China. By 2025, Starbucks will have 9000 stores in China, 35000 new partners (employees), more than 95000, double its net income and quadruple its operating profit.

At this exchange, Wang Jingying, chairman of Starbucks China, made no secret of his confidence in the future growth of Starbucks China

Coincidentally, McDonald's, as a global large multinational chain enterprise, has also accelerated its pace in the layout of the ready mixed coffee market this year. Also in September, McCaf é, a professional handmade coffee brand under McDonald's, announced that it was expected to add about 1000 stores in 2023, mostly in third tier cities. At the same time, McAfee has also started to make efforts on the product line, fully removing the latte from the shelves and launching the "milk iron series". It is understood that "milk iron" is a brand new milk coffee product developed by McAfee on the basis of understanding the coffee taste of Chinese consumers. As the exclusive star product of McAfee, it will be sold in nearly 2500 McAfee stores nationwide for a long time, and will help McAfee achieve higher growth.

And behind all this, the rapid growth of China's coffee consumption market in recent years has really attracted the attention of the world. According to the observation report of the import and export data of Huacheng, the market size of China's freshly ground coffee will be about 87.6 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 38.9% over the previous year. The report predicts that by 2024, the size of China's freshly ground coffee market is expected to reach 190 billion yuan. "The chain brands and stores of China's freshly ground coffee are mostly concentrated in the southern market and high-end cities, while the sinking markets in the northern and central western markets and low-end cities still have a large penetration space." The report said.

According to the observation report on the import and export data of Huacheng, by comparing the number of micro blog fans and product prices of different typical businesses of freshly ground coffee, the brand voice of foreign coffee brands is generally higher than that of local brands. Liu Chenyu, an analyst at iResearch Consulting, said: "The brand's voice can probably be expressed by the product of the number of micro blog followers of the brand and the average customer price of the product. With the same online traffic conversion rate, the more fans, the larger the potential consumption volume. On this basis, the higher the customer price of the product, the larger the brand's revenue scale."

In Liu Chenyu's view, it is precisely because of these foundations that more and more overseas brands are focusing more on China's future performance growth. According to Liu Chenyu, the main raw materials of freshly ground coffee - cooked coffee beans mainly come from foreign coffee bean planting areas, and the coffee culture itself also originates from European and American countries. Therefore, in terms of raw material procurement, product control and cultural understanding, overseas brands have more advantages and are more likely to form deep resonance with coffee lovers, which is one of the reasons why overseas brands have a large voice in China's freshly ground coffee industry.

"However, as a rising star, domestic emerging local freshly ground coffee brands have brought large online traffic dividends to the entire industry, and also provided a value reference for overseas brands to accelerate online layout." Liu Chenyu said that there is still much room for growth in China's freshly ground coffee market. With the gradual formation of Chinese coffee consumption habits, the scale of this market is still expanding. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.

She said that both overseas brands and local brands should focus on the following aspects when laying out the Chinese freshly ground coffee market in the future: first, build a dynamic closed-loop of the whole industrial chain from upstream high-quality raw material supply to online and offline full contact linkage to the construction and maintenance of consumer ecological service system. The second is to fully tap the potential space around the high-speed cities, expand the radiation range of stores, and accurately cover the potential consumers of freshly ground coffee. Third, we have a deep understanding of the consumer psychology of contemporary young groups, and through the expansion and iteration of categories, we have promoted the emergence of phenomenal popular products and redefined freshly ground coffee. The fourth is to combine western coffee culture with Chinese eastern traditional culture, derive new Chinese characteristics, and create brand differentiation competitive advantage from the perspective of cultural concept. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.