Six keywords outline the development of China's tea industry last year

In 2022, in the unprecedented predicament of the market, tea companies have not laid down, but more in the face of difficulties, bold changes, and positive actions
.
Taking stock of the past 2022, the industry proposed six keywords for China's tea industry: tea industry stagnation, live broadcast tea sales, cross-border circle breaking, product polarization, supply chain upgrading, and returning to duty
.
Through the inventory of the past year of the tea industry, to inspire thinking and guide the future development
of the industry.

One of the keywords: stagnation of the tea industry

"Stagflation of the tea industry" specifically means the rise in tea costs and the decline
in tea sales.

Affected by many factors such as production methods and labor costs, the production cost of tea in China continues to rise
at an annual rate of about 10%.
In 2022, the two major factors of "abnormal climate" and "epidemic" were superimposed on the conventional factors, which further promoted the rise
of production costs.
According to the observation, research and analysis of China Tea Business School, the cost of tea will increase by about
20% in 2022.
At the beginning of 2022, the rapid rise in weather temperature and the sharp return to cold, and the low temperature for a long time, caused widespread damage to tea-producing areas, which not only reduced the yield and quality of spring tea, but also promoted the "jump"
in the price of raw tea.
During the peak period of spring tea picking production, the epidemic continued to break out across the country, and strict control measures led to extremely low desire of tea pickers to go out to work, tea enterprises fell into the dilemma of tea picking and tea making, and labor costs further increased
.

In 2022, it can be said that China's tea industry has been the biggest dilemma for more than 20 years, not only the cost has risen sharply, but also the sales volume has declined significantly, according to the survey and analysis of China Tea Business School, it is expected that the year-on-year sales volume will decline by about
20%.

In addition, the epidemic in many places and points has been repeated many times, the number of customers in various tea houses and various tea shops has been greatly reduced, and many physical stores have been closed for many times, resulting in a setback
in offline tea sales.
Tea companies took the initiative or were forced to move sales online, and made up for offline sales losses through platform e-commerce and live broadcast tea sales, but they encountered repeated logistics interruptions in many regions, resulting in orders that could not be delivered, a large number of orders were returned, and online sales were also blocked
.

Under the "stagflation", the revenue and profits of tea merchants and tea enterprises have declined, and the income of tea farmers has also decreased
.

Keyword 2: live broadcast selling tea

The "live broadcast tea sale", which began to rise in the spring tea season in 2020, will show a "hot" scene in 2022
.
Almost all members of tea farmers, tea merchants, tea enterprises, tea houses, tea shops, etc.
participate in online live broadcasting, and new media, e-commerce and other platforms are involved; Production, tea gardens, warehouses, life, tea shops, tea tables and other scenes are all live.

Tea live broadcast is very hard, multi-platform, multi-live broadcast number super long live broadcast, but also with the help of big coffee, talents, stars, etc.
to accelerate out of the circle
.
Although tea live broadcast is popular, it needs to be treated with caution, tea is a niche category on any platform, and small traffic is an objective reality, and it will also be a long-term problem; It is rare for the live broadcast tea month performance to exceed 10 million and the single game to exceed 1 million, and super promotional means such as full discount coupons and limited-time discount flash deals are used to impress users, and the normalized sales ability is insufficient
.
At the same time, the threshold for live selling tea is low, and everyone can sell tea live, which is a lot of counterfeiting, hurting users and damaging the reputation
of the industry.

At present, live broadcast tea selling has been upgraded from an Internet celebrity single operation to a standardized operation
of the team assembly line.
It is necessary to formulate accurate product strategies and marketing strategies, systematic content planning, build diversified live broadcast scenarios, create live broadcast scripts, screen framing, atmosphere creation, and live broadcast layout of the whole network, so as to get close to and close to users
.
At the same time, it is also necessary to strengthen team building, upgrade the live broadcast mode from "one-person anchor" to "multi-party singing", and create a relatively sustainable, replicable, operable anchor group that conforms to the tonality of "national live broadcast", which is the direction of the development of live broadcast of
tea enterprises.

Keyword 3: cross-border breaking the circle

Breaking the circle of marketing is a topic
that is discussed and explored in all walks of life.
Faced with the problem of sluggish market, enterprises seek partners who are not in the industry, give full play to the synergy effect of different types of brands to increase sales, and make cross-border marketing that penetrates and integrates the industry popular
.
"Breaking the circle of marketing" is particularly urgent
for the tea industry.

In 2022, tea companies have made bold explorations on the road of "crossover", integrating with FMCG, culture, art, film and television, cultural tourism, etc.
, with many
highlights.
Relatively large movements such as bamboo leaf green and dance poetry drama "Only This Green Green" combined to launch a new co-branded IP product; "Small Can of Tea" joined hands with "Wuliangye" to create a tea wine cultural and creative super single "gift from the East" tea and wine gift box
.

Cross-border, let tea enterprises attach great importance to the matching of brand concepts, product complementarity, user relevance, market non-competition, so that the brand can have a superposition effect, achieve a win-win or even win-win situation, and achieve good market results
.
Although it is only an action, cross-border circle breaking is a system, including joint development of new products, channel sharing, marketing promotion, joint interaction, etc.
, but also includes borrowing the mature concepts and technologies of another industry to achieve functional cross-border and cultural isomorphism, IP strong alliance and other models
.

In the breaking circle of communication and promotion, tea enterprises have made more efforts
.
Including posting articles on other industry media and public media trumpets, inviting industry celebrities outside the industry to participate in promotional activities, etc
.
Cross-border wonderful, the tea industry has just begun, and it still needs continuous efforts, continuous enrichment of content and new ways to try, and the future will definitely be more exciting
.

Keyword 4: product polarization

China has a large group with relatively stable incomes, and when the economic situation is good, its consumption tends to be high-end; The epidemic has caused this part of the group to suffer more income losses, consumption has sunk, and the social level has formed a pattern
of high-end tea and low-end tea with unique scenery, and middle-end tea is in a difficult situation.

The tea industry has always taken the cultural tea route, good at making high-end tea, under the epidemic, tea companies have basically guarded this lifeline, and low-end tea has attracted greater attention, in 2022, there are top brands in the industry such as Zhuyeqing and small can tea with strong participation, and Jin Lanchun and other rookies in the tea industry are in full force
.
China Tea Business School believes that this may be about to open a new industrial trend
.

Statistics from the China Tea Circulation Association show that the average domestic price of tea in China in 2021 is 135.
5 yuan / kg, so the mainstream of China's tea market is still low-cost tea, also known as "ration tea" and "public tea", etc.
, but low-price tea is mainly unbranded Mao tea, loose tea, "life tea" is cut out of a part of the low-price tea plate, branded operations, and new operations
.

New product standards: de-regionalization, weak culture; Balanced quality, strong taste universality, convenient drinking; Low absolute price and low cost of drinking; High appearance, simple and fashionable
.

Operation new system: the pursuit of standardization and the realization of scale require the support of a large system, only big marketing, big channels, big teams, big promotion, and big brands can become big winners
.

Supply chain determines success or failure: life tea takes the route of low gross profit, cost control is very important, and the supply chain management ability of enterprises is the key to
success or failure.

The track of life tea can create super large items, but its construction is tired, fierce competition, high cost, long cycle, difficult management, usually the track of large enterprises, before entering the comprehensive ability of the enterprise to be carefully evaluated
.

Keyword 5: supply chain upgrading

In 2022, tea enterprises will have greater operating pressure, and "throttling" has become a priority
.
A very important measure of "throttling" is to upgrade the supply chain, so that the supply chain is more efficient, more responsive, better cost, and more stable in quality, so as to enhance the profitability and overall competitiveness
of enterprises.

In 2022, many leading brand enterprises such as small can tea, bamboo leaf green, and pinpinxiang have increased their investment in supply chain upgrading, the core content of supply chain upgrading includes: reverse integration and management of the supply chain, export the management system to each link of the supply chain with the market as the standard, improve the overall coordination ability of the supply chain, and reduce the overall coordination cost of the supply chain; Optimize the supply chain structure, compress the supply chain links, reduce the transaction links and reduce transaction costs; Coach and support the professional upgrading and large-scale expansion of the supply chain, and improve the quality control ability and scale capability of the supply chain; Reconstruct and upgrade the relationship between brand tea enterprises and the supply chain, upgrade from a trading relationship of interest games to a strategic partner of benefit sharing, highly unify values, unify ideas, stimulate collective collaborative creativity, and jointly create the future
.

At the same time, leading brand enterprises have increased investment in core links such as refining, sub-packaging, and warehousing, including mechanization, continuity, intelligence, and digital transformation and upgrading, and building high brand competition barriers
in key elements such as quality, efficiency and cost.

Keyword 6: Tea enterprises return to their duties

Those who open tea processing factories are keen to make brands and open tea shops; Those who open tea shops are keen to build factories, and even buy tea gardens, of course, there are also tea growers to build factories, make brands, and open tea shops
.

In the past few years, the popular "whole industry chain integration" model of China's tea industry is essentially not satisfied with the profits of its own links, but the profits
of upstream and downstream links.
The "whole industry chain integration" model promoted by this idea can still take into account in the cycle of rapid progress and rising volume and price of the tea industry, but when the tea industry encounters a cold snap of low growth or even negative growth, it is difficult to take into account the whole industry chain model
.
In 2022, the rising cost and the decline in sales are superimposed, and the shortcomings of the whole industry chain model with multiple links, long chains, low collaboration efficiency and high comprehensive costs have been highlighted, which has become an unbearable burden
for some tea companies.
In order to fight for the links that they are not good at, diluting the links they are best at, tea companies have lost their core capabilities
that are not very advantageous.

In 2022, many tea companies finally regained their composure and began to return to their duties of "subtraction action", that is, to cut the links they are not good at, return to the links they are best at, and concentrate their energy and resources to optimize and upgrade the core links they are good at, referred to as "doing addition in the core links", improve the core capabilities of tea enterprises, and increase their core competitiveness
.

Tea enterprises match their core capabilities with the operation mode of the industrial chain to carry out accurate enterprise repositioning
.
Enterprises that are good at agriculture will return to breeding tea and growing tea; Enterprises are good at processing, quality control and supply chain management, focusing on production; Strong corporate brand ability and strong marketing ability focus on product branding; Enterprises are good at retail and store operations and management, so focus on channels
.

The return of tea enterprises to their duties will trigger the division of labor in the tea industry chain, which will accelerate the modernization process of China's tea industry, which is worth looking forward to
.

(Ouyang Daokun, Tian Youlong)

China Food News (2023.
01.
12.
07).

(Responsible editor: Yuan Guofeng)