According to the seventh National Population Census, China’s population of children aged 0-14 stood at 2,500 million in 2020, comprising 17.95% of the total. This substantial population base indicates a highly potential market for children’s snack food in China. In 2021, the children’s snack market size in China reached CNY 144.57 billion, with a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 12.5%. ^[1]

Driven by the promising market potential, various food enterprises actively take part in the children’s snack food track. Currently, there are mainly three varieties of snack food brands in the Chinese market. The first variety is sub-brands founded by top snack food brands, such as “Deer Blue” of Three Squirrels and “Fairy Yummy” of Bestore. The second is emerging children’s snack food brands supported by capital, such as Baobaochanle and Qiutian Manman. Both have received multiple financial supports within 5 months after their establishment. The third is sub-brands under traditional food giants, like “Shamba Star” of diary company New Hope and “Zhiquduo” of meat product company Shuanghui.

Among these three varieties of brands, the first type currently holds a competitive advantage in the industry. Leveraging the top brands’ extensive market experience, these sub-brands can directly upgrade the formulas of popular products produced by the parent company to meet children’s nutritional demands, and on this basis, forge snack products suitable for children. According to the financial report of Three Squirrels, the sales value of Deer Blue exceeded CNY 550 million in 2021. During the 2021 Double Eleven Shopping Festival, the brand’s sales value exceeded CNY 40 million, increasing over 100% YoY. Its hawthorn stick product was an upgraded version of Three Squirrels’ popular product, with monthly sales of over 10,000 units on the Tmall flagship store.

Deer Blue’s hawthorn stick

With the active participation of enterprises in the Chinese children’s snack food market, the range of children snacks expand from traditional confectionery like candies to multiple varieties such as dried fruits and vegetables, dairy products, nuts, grain food, etc. Currently, biscuits, nuts, puffed food and chocolate are the top four snack categories with the highest sales, accounting for over 70% of the total. While traditional retail channels like supermarkets, convenience stores, and mother and baby stores remain the primary sales channels of children's snack food, the emergence of e-commerce has allowed brands to explore online channels like e-commerce platforms and social media to attract consumers with convenient purchasing methods and personalized product recommendation algorithm.

As more brands stepped into the children’s snack food market, understanding the success factors becomes crucial. How can brands become leading players in this promising market? Here are some insights.

1. Creating Attractive Products to Both Parents and Children

Brands should focus on developing products that are appealing to consumers. As the post-90s and post-95s become the new generation of parents, parenting concepts are gradually evolving towards a more scientific and meticulous direction. Parents wish their children to eat well instead of only eating enough by providing them with healthy and nutritional food. When it comes to the purchasing of snacks, the health and nutritional values are key concerns.

For instance, parents prefer products made from superior ingredients with fewer or even no additives. Many popular children’s snack food brands have launched additive-free or low-additive products. Woxiaya’s fruit sticks are made solely from fruits and apple fibre. The ingredients of Baobaochanle’s shrimp slices are simple and pure, including shrimp, edible cassava starch, corn oil, fermented soy sauce, rock sugar and calcium carbonate only. 

When children select snacks themselves, they pay more attention to the appearance of the products. To attract children, snack food should also be interesting, such as having appealing product packages and shapes. Co-branding with well-known intellectual properties (IPs) including cartoon IPs and comic IPs, like Kung Fu Panda and SpongeBob SquarePants, are highly welcome. Some emerging children’s snack food brands also create their own IPs, like Lanlan of Deer Blue and Shamba of Shamba Star. 

2. Addressing Consumer’s Concerns

Brands are supposed to address the concerns of consumers, especially parents. In the past, many parents were opposed to children consuming snacks due to the high sugar and fat of products, the presence of unhealthy additives like colorants, etc. The introduction of healthy and nutritious snack products for children, as mentioned above, is aimed at alleviating parents’ worries and gaining their trust. Snack food with additional functions was also rolled out. Probitotic snacks for children are one of the most popular categories due to the multiple benefits of probiotics, such as gastrointestinal protection, immunity improvement and allergy reduction. For instance, Deer Blue’s yogurt and banana flavoured dairy beans, made from New Zealand’s milk source and enriched with probiotics and prebiotics is one of the brand’s best-selling products. 

Some brands also focus on improving children’s picky eating habits so as to attract parents’ purchasing. Shugele’s dried vegetables are manufactured from fresh vegetables and shaped in attractive appearances to compensate for the lacked elements caused by children’s dislike of vegetables. Deer Blue’s seaweed product can be eaten with rice and is enhanced with pork floss, tuna floss, dried shrimp, dried vegetables, etc. to appeal to children who dislike rice. Additionally, considering the busy lifestyles of today’s parents, many brands design ready-to-eat products for convenience. For instance, Yellow Elephant’s cereal products can be directly consumed with yogurt or hot water.

3. Establishing Stable Supply Chains

Brands with stable supply chains tend to gain competitive advantages in the market. Some children’s snack food brands try to build their own supply chains so as to control product quality, improve product development, manufacturing capacities, and save cost. For instance, Baobaochanle founded the brand’s food laboratory and directly participated in product R&D. The brand has a professional team of over 100 food engineers, quality control experts, specialised nutritionists and parenting experts to provide maximum quality assurance for their products. Some sub-brands under traditional food giants also leverage the companies’ supply chains to develop products. For example, Shamba Star forged a wide range of dairy snack food products with the support of New Hope Group’s strong supply chain in the dairy industry.