Beverage Companies Step on the “Healthy” Route，Wahaha & Master Kong Taking the Lead

Recently, enterprises such as Coca Cola, Master Kong (Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corporation) and Wahaha act vigorously in the area of “being healthy and nutritious”. The functional beverage market in China is still unsaturated, and comprehensive health has become the breakthrough point of these enterprises.

Master Kong Makes Efforts in Developing Instant Nutritious Dairy Products
On February 10, Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corporation announced that, Master Kong Beverage Investment (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Master Kong Beverage”) has signed the cooperative agreement with Shanghai AB Food & Beverages Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “AB Food”) recently, and that Master Kong Beverage acquired the authorization of exclusively producing and selling the Ovaltine instant malt nutritious dairy products of AB Food in the market of mainland China since May 1 of this year. It is known that Ovaltine is the “national nutritious drink” in Switzerland, and the instant malt nutritious dairy products produced under the cooperation of AB Food and Master Kong Beverage is one of the key production lines of Ovaltine developing quickly. The milk beverages developed this time include only Weiquan lactobacillus beverage which is almost a relative blank field in China.

Wahaha Promotes Enzyme Drinks
Wahaha launched the first enzyme drink in China branded “Qingchang Jiaozhu” (Master of Enzyme) in August last year, and launched the “Jiaosu” enzyme drink for females paying attention to health and pursuing beauty and a slim figure. Wahaha’s Jiaosu is positioned as a “fruit & vegetable enzyme” drink aiming to promote the digestion function and lighten the burden of human body, and is currently being sold in the Micro-shop market by means of FCL sales at a price of RMB5 /bottle. In addition, Coca-Cola announced that it will launch a “healthcare beverage”, “Coca-Cola plus”, and this beverage would be put on sale in Japan on March 27 with a standard of 470ml/ bottle and at a price of JPY158 yen (approximately RMB9.6). As introduced by Coca-Cola, the fiber contained in Coca-Cola plus would contribute to reducing the absorption of fat, and help to control the triglyceride level at meals so as to decrease the risk of suffering from cardiovascular disease.

Being Healthy and Nutritious Became the Main Trend of the Beverage Industry
Nowadays, there is an increasing requirement of consumers for natural and healthy products. Taking vegetable protein drinks as the example, the market size of China’s vegetable protein drinks will reach about RMB73.3 billion by the year 2018, although it was only RMB25.329 billion in 2013. “In the future, exploring and satisfying consumers’ individualized and socialized requirements and developing their drinking habits and consciousness will be the important ways for enterprises to pursue new profit growth.” Deputy Secretary-General of China Association for Quality (CAQ) Li Gaoshuai said.
In past two years, healthy functional beverage has been growing like a raging fire in the China market which attracted numerous large enterprises. At present, the whole functional beverage market is not fully saturated, and many enterprises reached their development ceilings and thus transferred to the comprehensive health industry. In the future, comprehensive health industry will not merely refer to beverages, but also become the focus of the entire fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry.