Xufuji, a confectionery giant, is accelerating its development towards a 10 billion scale leisure snack company.
On July 6, the company, which celebrated its 30th anniversary, held a new product and Strategy Conference in Dongguan, where its headquarters is located, announcing a new brand slogan: “delicious gathering blessing, xufuji every day”, and launched more than 200 new products in 30 series at one go. For example, xiaoshidai learned at the scene that Xu Fuji set foot in snack tracks such as potato chips for the first time this year on the basis of maintaining the original products, and plans to launch new products such as short-term insurance cakes later this year.
Xufuji President liuxinggang
“Our goal is to achieve xufuji’s great cause of 10 billion years (revenue of more than 10 billion, build a brand of 100 years).” Liu Xinggang, President of xufuji, who officially took office last December, told xiaoshidai today. In the exclusive exchange with xiaoshidai after the press conference, he talked in detail about how xufuji expanded the consumption scene beyond the Spring Festival, the competitive strategy of entering the new track, and the upgrading direction of the product portfolio.
Next, let’s listen to the new handsome’s ideas.
Besides “new year candy”
As a leisure snack brand, xufuji has been closely linked with the Spring Festival for many years. At the beginning of its establishment, xufuji made its brand influence with new year’s candy, and its innovative bulk counter sales model is popular so far. Now when it comes to xufuji, many consumers will still think of its new year products for the first time, such as new year candy, crisp candy and nougat.
On the one hand, such a distinctive label has created a huge brand advantage and sales scale for xufuji, and has also successfully established an emotional connection with consumers at important candy and snack peak season sales nodes.
“When I arrived at xufuji, I had a deep personal experience, because (in the new year) I would see consumers queuing in long lines to buy xufuji. There were so many goods on the shelves, and they were all sold out in 2-3 hours. Then our people began to keep loading goods, and they kept taking them there, which made me feel very lively.” Liu Xinggang told xiaoshidai, “when I go to chat with consumers, they will tell me that they have to buy some xufuji back for the new year.”
But on the other hand, in the rest of the year, with the label of “New Year’s candy”, it is not easy for xufuji to continue to attract consumers. Therefore, in recent years, xufuji has been increasing the sales of products to promote more consumption scenarios beyond the Spring Festival.
“Of course, we should hold the position of selling new year goods. After all, this is a very important part of Xu Fuji’s mind in the 30 years of its development. We must hold it firmly. But at the same time, we also want consumers to think of Xu Fuji when they eat snacks.” Liuxinggang told xiaoshidai.
To this end, according to the voting results of hundreds of thousands of netizens, Xu Fuji and the new spokesperson Gong Jun launched a new brand slogan – “delicious gathering blessing, every day Xu Fuji”, and through the actions of “familiarization” of product packaging, they are committed to creating a new snack brand image of “ingenuity, health, delicious, fashion”.
“In terms of products, our advantage is the long product line and many categories. This year, we also launched more new products that can meet different daily consumption scenarios, such as new flavors of fruit juice fudge.” Liu Xinggang said that in terms of channels, xufuji will increase penetration into channels closer to consumers’ daily consumption, such as o2o.
Addition and subtraction method
In order to enter more daily consumption scenarios, xufuji is continuously upgrading and expanding its product portfolio to develop from “sugar point family” to a “national classic snack” brand.
Like many food and beverage companies, health is also one of the biggest themes of xufuji’s product innovation. According to the latest product innovation strategy officially announced at the press conference, xufuji will grasp the three major trends of healthy snacks: nutritional addition, ingredient subtraction, and healthier craft polishing products.
Xiaoshidai learned that,
In addition, xufuji has carried out the research and development of nutritional fortification and functional products, such as milk sticks rich in dietary fiber and boiled fresh milk, fruit soft sticks added with xylitol, plum candy containing Ningxia Zhongning medlar, etc. In terms of health technology, the company launched non fried cereal and milk pastry and other products.
Xiaoshidai learned that at present, xufuji has more than 1400 SKUs, covering candy, jelly, chocolate, biscuits, baked cakes and other categories, and about 100 products are added every year on average.
“Consumers are more interested in tasting snacks. When they choose snacks at our counter, they will also want to see different snacks, so we have a large number of new products on the market every year.” Liu Xinggang said that these new products have a “positive impact” on xufuji from the perspective of sales and experience. “Consumers will feel that xufuji is changing and innovative.”
According to Nielsen zero research data, in the hypermarket + supermarket channel, xufuji was far ahead in the overall bulk snack market in 2021, with its market share ranking first in sugar (31%), chocolate (35%), and pastry (10%), and second in jelly (21%).
Competition Road
Xu Fuji is also actively seeking growth opportunities for the new track if he wants to take more share in the leisure snack market.
For example, at the beginning of this year, this snack giant entered the potato chip market for the first time. “We expect that the sales of new potato chips will exceed 100 million this year.” Liu Xinggang said.
“At present, there are few well-known potato chip brands in the market. Why can’t we give consumers more choices? Young consumers are very curious and are willing to try new flavors, new brands and new products. The most important thing is to make the taste of the products good.” He told xiaoshidai.
Interestingly, the experience of working for many years in Tai Tai Le, a condiment company under Nestle, together with Xu Fuji, also provided some unique innovative inspiration for Liu Xinggang. “When I was in Taitaile, I focused on making condiments, which is my strength. In the second half of this year, we will launch potato chips with master taste, which are seasoned by masters from domestic Chinese restaurants. I had full cooperation with them when I was in Taitaile.” He said.
“For example, if I want to make a potato chip with pepper and hemp flavor, I will ask Sichuan cuisine masters to help me season it. If I make tomato flavor potato chips, I will ask Xinjiang masters specializing in tomato flavor to make it. This also makes xufuji’s potato chips have a differentiated competitive advantage from the potato chips on the market now.” Liuxinggang told xiaoshidai.
In addition, he mentioned that at present, most of the potato chips on the market are packed in large packages filled with nitrogen, which is not convenient for camping, outings, tourism and so on. “Because it takes up a lot of space, most girls’ backpacks can’t hold a few packages, so we made them into small packages that are not inflated, and it’s convenient to bring a few flavors out.”.
Xiaoshidai learned that xufuji has also made a layout in the cake and bread categories, especially the short-term insurance category, and will also launch the short-term insurance cake in the second half of this year. It is worth noting that this is also the first time xufuji has launched a short-term cake product.
Multiple channels
As mentioned above, xufuji is increasing its penetration into channels closer to consumers’ daily consumption.
The company said at the press conference that it plans to intensively cultivate diversified channels and accelerate the coverage of offline near-field small businesses. “Xufuji’s traditional advantage channels are hypermarkets and supermarkets, and the epidemic has accelerated the development of small retail formats and online shopping in recent years. For example, consumers will more often choose to shop in small stores near the community, place orders online, and so on.” Liuxinggang told xiaoshidai.
He said, therefore, xufuji should comply with this change in consumer behavior and vigorously develop small community stores, 500-1000 square meters of medium-sized stores, snack chains, as well as e-commerce and o2o channels. “In the future, we will accelerate the expansion in this regard, help dealers to expand these small stores and improve sales, and we will invest some resources to expand this penetration, so that consumers can enjoy the delicious food of xufuji anytime and anywhere.”
Up to now, xufuji has more than 140 branches and business offices across the country, managing more than 250000 large terminal stores and millions of small stores.
In addition to dealers, xufuji also operates e-commerce, o2o and other direct consumer oriented sales channels.
“Our e-commerce business includes jd.com, tmall.com, Tiktok interest e-commerce platform, etc. we are a three-dimensional game. On the e-commerce platform, we focus more on the launch of new products, and through e-commerce data analysis, we can have a more accurate insight into consumer preferences. At the same time, we participate in e-commerce large-scale shopping festivals. These games will be different from offline dealers.” Liu Xinggang said that Xu Fuji will continue to expand sales in the future.
Liu Xinggang also said that xufuji will continue to expand offline cities by accurately matching marketable products according to channel characteristics and consumption scenarios; Improve the shopping experience, strengthen the shopper communication in supermarkets, and launch more consumer trial activities; At the same time, we will vigorously expand interest in e-commerce. “In the increasingly fierce market competition, taking consumers as the guide, constantly laying out new markets and vigorously developing new platforms are bound to create higher growth for xufuji.” He said.
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