Interface News reporter | Ma Yue

Interface News Editor | Ya Hanxiang

With the Paris Olympic GamesLebanonworldcupqualifiersbasketballIs approachingLebanonworldcupqualifiersbasketballNestle Coffee is trying to associate it with a healthy exercise scene.

On May 20, Nestle Coffee announced that it had become the official partner of the training Bureau of the State General Administration of Sports, providing coffee product protection for athletes of the national team stationed in the Bureau. The two products are "absolute Deep Black" and "Gold Black Coffee". Taking black coffee as the focus of sports marketing reflects the current market changes-Nestl é first gained its popularity in China by adding sugar and cream to "three-in-one" instant coffee. Now Nestl é is putting more innovation and resources on black coffee products that better meet the needs of the current market.

An obvious trend is that a series of new consumer brands of fine instant coffee that have sprung up in the past few years are mainly black coffee products that do not add sugar or milk, such as three-and-a-half meals, Sumitagawa, Yongpu, and so on, while chain coffee brands such as Lucky, also occupy a place with packaged black coffee products such as freeze-dried powder.

According to Nielsen, black coffee grew 59% year-on-year in 2021, and the market share of sales jumped to 52%. Just the previous year, black coffee accounted for only 40% of the market, lower than 60% of blended coffee.

Nestl é also wants to gain a foothold in the black coffee market.

In terms of product layout, it has significantly accelerated the updating of black coffee in recent years.

Interface News has previously reported that seven series and more than 20 new products were launched on the eve of 618 in 2022, most of which are black coffee products. In a series of new products since the beginning of this year, there is no lack of updates to the black coffee category, such as ice coconut American coffee, orange C American black coffee, mellow black coffee espresso with 0 sugar and 0 fat as the selling point.

Alfonso Troisi, senior vice president of Nestl é Greater China Coffee Business Unit, told Interface News in an interview that the Nestl é coffee product line has more than 100 products in China, and through local and global market research, the company found that in many global coffee markets, Chinese consumers have a much higher health demand for drinking coffee than other markets.

"We are seeing two trends, one is that coffee appears in the form of more drinks, there are many flavors to choose from, and the other is that people's attention and interest in black coffee is growing very rapidly." In the interview, he expressed his judgment on the current coffee consumption market in China.

According to the financial report, Nestl é's coffee business in Greater China achieved low-single-digit and middle-digit growth in the whole year of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, respectively.

For the growing and promising Chinese market, Nestl é has also increased its investment, such as preparing to set up a coffee research and development center in Shanghai, involving different coffee categories to accelerate local innovation and research and development. In addition, it will launch many new products in the Chinese market.

Examples include "Wake up whirlwind Ice American Coffee Instant Coffee" in May 2023 and "Super Coffee liquid" in April this year. Alfonso told Interface News that China was one of the first two countries to list concentrated liquid products, and the other was Australia. On the other hand, the single cup package listed in China is more in line with the personalized needs of consumers in different scenarios.

But Nestl é is also emphasizing the richness of the product line and the diversity of coverage scenes.

According to Alfonso, instant and instant coffee account for more than 80% of the entire retail packaged coffee market in China. Instant products are mainly made at home, while drinking is instant drinking on the road. Nestl é's products in both scenarios match the mainstream market very well. In terms of category layout, instant and instant drinks are almost half of Nestle; in terms of the amount of cups consumed, instant products account for a higher proportion of cups and have a wider permeability.

Alfonso expects Nestle coffee to continue to grow in the next 3-5 years. Instant coffee will have a single-digit growth, and its cup volume will increase significantly; instant coffee is expected to have a double-digit growth, as the increase in outdoor scenes, including people's preference for coffee drinks, will lead to the growth of ready-to-drink coffee.

As for the "price war" sweeping the Chinese coffee market, Nestl é is also confident of providing consumers with more diversified values.

The brands with Lucky and Cuddy as the mainstream in the field of coffee have set off "9.LebanonworldcupqualifiersbasketballIn the price war of .9 yuan, and online channels, including Douyin studios, emerging brands have "rolled" the price of a single cup of black coffee to a few cents, objectively making the whole market more focused on the point of "cost-effective".

"although the entire supply chain and industry will encounter a lot of cost pressure in recent years, on the consumer side, we will make a lot of efforts to bring the best products for daily consumption." Alfonso said that the public's understanding and interest in coffee is comprehensive, not only in terms of quality, performance-to-price ratio, meeting daily needs, but also more concerned about the sustainability and environmental protection of coffee, as well as the relationship between coffee and health. Therefore, Nestl é's coffee products and experiences should be considered from more dimensions.