Beer hot season: the secret battle of brand "monopoly fees"
Liquor companies push new products to prepare for this summer's market, "monopoly fees" compete for store resources, and mid-to-high-end beers support performance growth
"Since the end of the year, people from Snowflake have come here several times, trying to get us to sell snowflakes exclusively, but we have been selling them in Yanjing for more than ten years, and we don't really want to change them." Wang Xianlin, the owner of a restaurant in Beijing, told the Beijing News reporter, maintaining The factors of this long-term cooperation are not only the complete product categories and high profit margins, but also the tens of thousands of extra "store entry fees" that beer agents pay to the store every year.
Right now is the peak season of beer consumption. A reporter from the Beijing News visited the market and found that "entry fees" are actually a common phenomenon.In the industry, the "store entry fee", also known as the "monopoly fee", is a means by which major beer brands or agents try to "exclusively" channel resources. The relevant fees are often written into exclusive agreements, restricting merchants to only sell the Branded beer products.
In addition to the entry fee, placing products on the dining table to increase the purchase rate, scanning codes or recycling beer bottle caps for rebates to restaurants, using preferential policies to increase product availability, and using community pubs to increase product sales are all beer brands competing for market practice.
dark war
Beer products "into the store monopoly" dark battle
Wang Xianlin's restaurant has been operating for more than ten years.He told the Beijing News reporter that the store only sells Yanjing beer, with annual sales reaching tens of thousands of cases.Even so, the sales staff of China Resources Snowflake will come every year to strive for the qualification to enter the store, and this year is no exception.
In order to stabilize the monopoly qualification, Yanjing Beer agents will pay Wang Xianlin 20,000 yuan as a "store entry fee" every year, and this fee will be written into the agreement between the two parties, restricting the bottled beer in the store to sell only Yanjing."The regional sales manager of Yanjing Beer will also be present when the agreement is signed."
The restaurant next door to Wang Xianlin also mainly sells Yanjing beer. The reason given by the boss is that "Yanjing gives a bigger discount and returns more wine (quantity)."Unlike Wang Xianlin, the owner has not signed an exclusive agreement with Yanjing Beer, and the store also sells a "Taishan Pure 7 Days" beer.
Coincidentally, Shandong Taishan Beer Co., Ltd. had sued Yanjing Beer's "Yanjing 7 Days Fresh" for infringing "Taishan Puree 7 Days". The economic loss of beer is 500,000 yuan and the reasonable expenditure is 60,000 yuan.
A reporter from the Beijing News visited catering channels and found that the "entry fee" is not unique to a beer company.Mr. Lu, the owner of the barbecue restaurant, cooperated with China Resources Snow. "It costs tens of thousands of dollars a year to enter the store!" On the evening of June 7, he highly recommended the "Brave to the End of the World" under China Resources Snow to customers, and said that the current event It's "drink a box and get half a box".
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Rights Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society, believes that the content of the agreement between beer agents and restaurants on "entry fees" is suspected of violating the "Anti-Unfair Competition Law". As for whether the beer manufacturers are jointly and severally liable , it depends on whether it has organized planning and participated in the implementation.
An unnamed person in the beer industry told the Beijing News reporter that the "store entry fee" mentioned by the store is usually called the "monopoly fee" in the beer industry, and this phenomenon exists in many consumer goods channels.In addition to the "monopoly fee", the common market competition methods among beer brands include placing products on the dining table to increase the purchase rate, scanning codes or recycling beer bottle caps for rebates to restaurants, etc.
The owner of a community supermarket in Fangshan, Beijing said that in order to occupy more space on the shelves, major beer agents generally give preferential policies for purchase prices, while local beer brands have often found a "golden spot" for prices."Beer has a relatively large volume and weight, and is relatively regional, so it costs more for foreign brands to enter the local market, and even if they do activities, they have no price advantage." In its stores, the best-selling local Yanjing beer is currently. , Tsingtao Beer and Snow Beer also have a certain share. "Snow Beer mainly relies on low-price strategy."
In response to the "monopoly fee" issue, on June 13, a reporter from the Beijing News contacted Yanjing Beer and China Resources Snow by phone. As of press time, the phone call has not been answered, and the interview email has not been replied.
high end
Collective efforts to high-end beer
In addition to the invisible brand "entering the store", there are also visible new promotions and promotions in the peak beer consumption season.
For example, on April 12 this year, Chongqing Beer's mid-to-high-end new product "Golden Chongqing" was launched, featuring the imported golden malt taste.On May 10th, Pearl River Pure Life announced the launch of a new product called "Sigh" with a fresh citrus and pomelo fragrance.Zhang Lei, manager of the German Royal Brewery, Sir Carl of Jianliyuan, told the Beijing News that in addition to holding German-style traditional activities such as the Oktoberfest, the company will also launch online and offline channel linkage promotion measures, such as online purchases of designated products as gifts offline Brewery experience coupons, etc.
In terms of promotion, a reporter from the Beijing News visited Beijing Tongzhou Wanda Yonghui Supermarket and found that from May 15 to June 7, Tsingtao Brewery's 500ml Qingdao 11-degree white beer, originally priced at 9.5 yuan per bottle, was adjusted to 7.9 yuan per bottle. .From June 7th to 21st, Chongqing Beer's 330ml 1664 passion fruit flavored beer, originally priced at 16.6 yuan per bottle, was adjusted to 12.5 yuan per bottle.
The Beijing News reporter noticed that the prices of new products launched by major beer brands this summer are mainly in the mid-to-high-end price range of 5 yuan to 20 yuan, and the trend of high-end is becoming more and more obvious.For example, Pearl River Beer's "Shitan" is priced at 65 yuan for 12 cans in its JD self-operated store, which is about 5.42 yuan per can; Chongqing Beer's mid-to-high-end new product "Jin Chongqing" is priced at about 9.11 yuan per bottle on JD.com.
According to feedback from many liquor store owners, the best-selling beers in the Beijing market are concentrated in the price range of 5-10 yuan, such as Yanjing U8 and Budweiser Fujia White Beer.Products with a price of less than 5 yuan are mostly placed at the edge of the channel, and some stores cannot even buy beer at this price, and the overall market share of mid-end beer has increased.
Zhang Lei said that although low-priced beer products are still the mainstream, more and more consumers will pay for higher-quality beer.Fang Gang, an expert in the beer industry, believes that the ways to improve profitability can be divided into optimizing production capacity, increasing prices, upgrading product structure and building brands.
Zhujiang Beer once said in February this year when answering questions from investors that the company determines the price based on market and cost conditions. cost impact.
Yanjing Beer's investor relations activity record sheet released on March 22 shows that it optimizes and upgrades existing products, increases research and development efforts, conducts experiments and reserves for new products, and continues to promote mid-to-high-end products.The financial report shows that in the first half of 2021, Yanjing Beer’s mid-to-high-end products accounted for 61.7% of its main revenue, an increase of about 6.5 percentage points from the same period in 2020.During the same period, the sales volume of Tsingtao Brewery's high-end and above products increased by 41.4% year-on-year.
In addition to increasing the proportion of products with a price of 10 yuan, high-end beer is also the focus of major brands.Since 2021, Budweiser, Qingdao, China Resources Snow and other leading beer companies have launched ultra-high-end beers priced at around 1,000 yuan, releasing a signal of high-end brands.
craft beer
Rapid growth of craft beer
In the process of collective high-end beer industry, craft beer has become a popular track for major wine companies to grab.
As early as 2010, Great Leap Beer started from Beijing Doujiao Hutong. It created a splash in the domestic beer market with a single taste at the time, and also made a group of friends who like craft beer.Lu Weilun, CEO of Great Leap Beer, summed up his experience: customers prefer light and refreshing beers in summer, such as its core drink "Jiushili Lake Cologne Beer", as well as some fruity beers.This year, Great Leap Beer has launched a new step by step IPL, brewed by the brewer using quadruple hops.
Great Leap isn't the only beer company betting on summer spending."In summer, easy-to-drink beer with a refreshing taste sells better. For this reason, we have recently developed beer with longan honey, sweet-scented osmanthus and oolong tea, and honey-osmanthus beer developed for female audiences is also very popular." Haidilao craft products Manager Li Wenjuan said.
Lehui International's 2021 financial report shows that in recent years, the proportion of craft beer consumption has increased year by year.In 2020, the sales volume of craft beer in China is about 830,000 kiloliters, accounting for about 2.17% of the overall consumption of beer. Compared with the 26.8% sales volume in the United States, there is still room for development.
According to statistics from China's industrial and commercial registration department, the number of craft beer companies in my country has grown from nearly 2,000 at the end of 2018 to over 6,500 at the end of 2021, and the entire industry has shown explosive growth.
The fast-growing industry figures have attracted giants to deploy.In order to find craft beer brands that can be invested and acquired on a global scale, AB InBev specially established ZX Ventures in 2015. In addition to acquiring independent craft beer brands such as “Boxing Cat”, it also launched the American craft beer brand “Goose”. Island" introduced the domestic market and opened a craft wine bar with the same name.Other beer companies have followed suit. In 2019, Yanjing Beer launched the “Eight Views of Yanjing” craft beer series, and Carlsberg invested in the craft beer brand “Jing A”.
The entry of giants has also intensified the craft beer competition, and problems have followed.An industry insider told the Beijing News that due to the lack of craft beer standards, it is difficult for consumers to distinguish the quality of craft beer, especially in the face of dazzling imported craft beer products.At the same time, the "industrial craft beer" produced by big breweries has also been questioned by some independent craft beer brands.
In June 2017, the China Craft Beer Association (CBAC), including brands such as Master Gao, Youhang, Dayue, Leybold and Shangri-La, was formally established, proposing that the "standard of craft beer" is that there should be no non-craft beer. The shares of beer companies are enough to show that these independent craft brands are wary of "industrial craft beer".Yinhai, the founder of Niu Beer Hall, even publicly announced in 2017: "My 32 brands, including Niu Beer Hall, Fengshou, and Master Gao, have sold all Budweiser products within this month."
According to the data, industrial beer mostly adopts the lager process, commonly known as "industrial lager". In order to meet the requirements of rapid production, the fermentation time is usually only 7 days.Craft beer generally uses the ale process, and the fermentation process can last for a month or two.In addition, the content of malt and hops is also a major basis for judging craft beer.
Zhang Lei told the Beijing News reporter, "Craft beer usually uses natural raw materials such as water, malt, hops, and yeast. Due to the long fermentation cycle and different manufacturing processes, various beer flavors can be better preserved, regardless of taste or flavor. Industrial beer is out of reach.”
He also emphasized, "Many people don't know the difference between industrial beer and craft beer, and even think that domestic beer is industrial beer and imported craft beer, which is also wrong."
"A big problem encountered in the development process is 'fake craft beer', which still use industrial brewing methods, including adding corn syrup to reduce costs." Lu Weilun, CEO of Great Leap Beer, believes that the difference between craft beer and industrial beer is mainly There are three points. First, craft beer usually selects good natural raw materials and does not add sugar; second is the creative experiment of raw materials and tastes, "everything is possible, but not everything is desirable"; finally, craft beer should be local. , Independent, "It's hard for me to treat so-called imported craft beers as real craft beers."
Technical transformation
Domestic beer technical transformation
The data shows that my country's beer production will rebound to 35.624 million kiloliters in 2021 after seven consecutive years of decline, and the performance of several major listed beer companies has also started a period of growth.However, the "threat" of imported beer remains.According to customs data, my country's beer imports increased from 182,000 kiloliters in 2013 to 521,700 kiloliters in 2021, and reached 822,300 kiloliters in 2018.
The blind admiration of domestic consumers for imported beer is what Zhang Lei felt the most.The "Sir Carl" brewery brand operated by Jianliyuan in Qingdao, Shandong is imported from Germany. The raw materials and brewing process are synchronized with the German brewery. The only difference is that the brewing production is carried out in China.
"We introduced this production line with our partners, so that Chinese consumers can taste fresh and pure German craft beer at the same time as German consumers. However, the problem we often encounter is that many people think that imported beer must be better than domestic beer. Well, some consumers often regard our beer as imported beer." Zhang Lei said.
In fact, domestic beer has been continuously improving product quality and brand image in recent years. For example, Tsingtao Brewery promotes digital transformation and strengthens intelligent manufacturing, and at the same time uses the Beijing Winter Olympics to expand its brand voice.Yanjing Beer has established a national-level technology center and a national-level laboratory, and at the same time uses short videos such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, and live broadcast outlets for brand promotion.
In addition to the layout of high-end beer, technological transformation is also a major means to improve the quality of domestic beer.
In March 2022, the Xingdong China Resources Snow Beer Headquarters Base in Shenzhen started construction, and plans to simultaneously implement capital increase and production expansion projects to build an automated, clean and information-based smart factory.In December 2021, Chongqing Beer announced that it plans to expand production in Foshan and Xichang.In November 2021, the Tsingtao Brewery Technology R&D Center and the 1.2 million kiloliter expansion project of Tsingtao Brewery Smart Industrial Park will hold the groundbreaking ceremony at the same time.The former will help Tsingtao Brewery continue to play a good "technology brand", and the latter will become a domestic beer production base with "more complete industrial chain of single factories, larger scale of monomers, and higher level of intelligence" in China.
Liu Peng, director of the Great Wall Securities Financial Research Institute and head of the big consumer group, believes that if domestic beer wants to gain development opportunities and further promote industrial upgrading, it must first strengthen the brand tonality and integrate it more closely with consumption scenarios.Secondly, we must improve standards and strengthen innovation in product quality, especially in yeast, water and flavor."What is good product power? That is, the smaller the product differentiation from each other, the more differentiation it is necessary to make, and the more room for bargaining to be obtained."
(Wang Xianlin is a pseudonym)
Written by version B04-B05 / Beijing News reporter Wang Zhenzhen
【Editor: Cheng Chunyu】
