For the post 8090 generation, golden oatmeal, which represents the flavor of childhood, is ushering in a “new life” when it has entered the Chinese market for 30 years. Recently, the official flagship store of golden cereal quietly landed on e-commerce platforms such as tmall and jd.com. The products sold in the store have also derived more than 10 new products from the most familiar original instant nutritional cereal.
“We are starting with product innovation, Omni channel expansion and reshaping brand communication, hoping that this old brand can also approach generation Z young consumers.” Zhoubin, general manager of Guangdong weichi Food Co., Ltd., had an exchange with the snack representative a few days ago. He also revealed that with the new management team of the company in place and a series of market layout landing at the beginning of this year, the average monthly sales of golden oatmeal has maintained a year-on-year growth of 30% in the past six months.
Zhou Bin also said that this year, the company has set a target of year-on-year sales growth of 40%. At the same time, it plans to further expand its existing production capacity and introduce a variety of products from overseas markets to China.
Let’s take a look at the details.
New team
For such an old brand with a history of 30 years, what triggered the latest market layout of the current series?
According to official data, the parent company of golden oatmeal, viz branz, was founded in 1988 by Zhuang kunping, a Malaysian Teochew businessman. It has instant oatmeal, coffee and tea making business. Over the years, its business has spread across China and Southeast Asia, and its operations include more than 10 well-known brands such as Gold Coast, Royal Myanmar tea and caf é 21.
In december2020, the Asian food growth fund jointly initiated and established by China Resources Capital, Fengshi investment and Investcorp completed the acquisition of the controlling stake of weichi Pinshi group, and intends to seek new development space and more opportunities for the latter.
Xiaoshidai previously introduced that zhongtingyi, a senior professional manager who once held senior management positions in several multinational groups, has been the CEO of weichi Pinshi group since October 8 last year. Under his promotion, the company’s new management team has also been quickly established.
“I joined the company on December 28, 2021, and other management levels responsible for new channels such as marketing and e-commerce were also in place in January and March this year.” Zhoubin told xiaoshidai that the new team felt a little “unbelievable” after taking over the golden oatmeal business: since it was listed in China in 1992, golden oatmeal has been working hard in the market for nearly 30 years only with the original instant nutritional oatmeal.
According to the market data, in 2019, golden oats occupied the first place in the sales of hot ready to eat oats in the four core markets of Hainan, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Fujian, and had an average market share of about 30% in the seven leading economically developed provinces in China.
Zhoubin, general manager of Guangdong weichi Food Co., Ltd
In Zhou Bin’s view, the stability of golden oatmeal business benefits from the solid foundation of offline market channels. However, due to the conservative business line in the past, it is difficult to have leapfrog development because it only maintains a median single digit growth every year. In response to this situation, the company listed the urgent aspects of marketing, product innovation, channel innovation and digitalization as the key considerations when recruiting management.
It is understood that at present, the core management of the company has experience in P & G, Mars Wrigley, Johnson & Johnson, Danone, Unilever and other well-known FMCG companies.
Annual growth of 40%
After sufficient market research, the new management team led by Zhou Bin decided to start with product diversification and channel diversification, hoping to change the situation of “one single product dominates the world” in the past.
He said that since the beginning of this year, the company has developed some new products for different consumption scenarios, such as cup cereal products suitable for convenience store channels, and hanging strip separate packaging for small shops in towns and villages facing the sinking market. It also launched a brand-new nutrition selection series, adding black sesame, Qiya seeds, prebiotics and other ingredients, which also catered to the current “0-added sucrose” in taste.
In addition, Jinwei has also launched its own nut fruit oatmeal series, hoping to meet the needs of young consumers, after noting the trend that fruit oatmeal has become very popular in the market in the past two years. At present, in addition to the classic series, the official flagship store of Jinwei also has
In order to get closer to the younger generation of consumers, Jinwei will also launch a new sub brand “jinxiaowei” series. “Jinxiaowei will mainly extend to cereal snacks. On the one hand, it is more convenient to eat at any time and place, unlike the low and peak consumption seasons of beverage products. On the other hand, the overall brand positioning is also younger.” Zhoubin said.
It is reported that in August and September this year, golden oatmeal will also launch a new wave of brand marketing activities for young consumers on emerging social media platforms such as xiaohongshu and Tiktok.
In addition to creating a new product matrix, it is particularly important to reach consumers in an all-round way.
“Since February and March this year, we began to deploy e-commerce business, including new channels such as o2o community group purchase. At present, we have also made great progress, which has alleviated the pressure on the development of our offline business during the epidemic period to a certain extent.” Zhou Bin also said that the company also plans to fully introduce the coffee, tea and other products of weichi Pinshi group in Southeast Asia and other overseas markets online and offline in the future.
“In the new fiscal year beginning in July, we have set ourselves a more radical goal, with sales growth of 40%! From the current situation, the first few months of this year have basically maintained a year-on-year growth of more than 30%, so we are still very confident.” Zhoubin also told xiaoshidai that in order to ensure the follow-up market growth, the company plans to lay out a new cereal production line in Zhengzhou this year to further expand production capacity and supply.
Offline value chain
In fact, in recent years, with the rise of diet concepts such as light food and simple food, cereal and other cereal foods focusing on health and nutrition have entered a period of rapid development. In addition to giants like Quaker, a number of new players such as Wang satin and Costco have emerged in China, which have had an impact on the traditional product form and market of cereal. So, for old brands like Jinwei, how do you view these new competitors and the current market competition pattern?
“It should be said that the online Red brands incubated from online do have their own characteristics and advantages in product innovation and marketing, but they still need to solve the problem of ‘landing’ of offline channels.” Zhou Bin pointed out that for golden oats, the more important thing is the stable and close “offline value chain” that has been maintained for many years.
“We believe that the business should return to its essence so that both dealers and channels can make profits. Only then can we be willing to develop with us for a long time.” He believes that the reason why golden oatmeal can survive in the Chinese market for so long with a single product, and has always maintained a stable business market and ideal financial situation, on the one hand, it shows that the product can stand the test of the market, and on the other hand, it is closely related to the company’s business philosophy.
Zhou Bin also believes that the FMCG Brand that can finally successfully emerge from the long-term market competition must be the existence of the integration of online and offline channels, which can meet the purchase needs of all different scenarios. Therefore, golden oatmeal will not pursue ultra-high speed development at the cost of profits. Whether in product innovation or the expansion and layout of e-commerce, o2o and community group purchase, it will continue to rely on the existing business market and distribution system.
“It is expected that at the beginning of the new fiscal year, we will sign cooperation agreements with dealers in more than 10 provinces, which is also the main source of our business growth next year.” Zhoubin said.
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