Challenged by the prevailing sugar reduction wave, China's confectionery market struggles to revive stagnant volume. The gummy sector in China drives off in a different direction notwithstanding. Functional gummy is playing the dual role as a snack with a "health halo" and has managed to buck the headwinds. It smashes consumers' stereotype towards health supplements by distinguishing itself from drugs for not being powder or pill. On the other hand, designed as a snack, functional gummy is a better solution to the demands of supplementing nutrients in daily life regardless of scenarios.
In the Chinese market, gummy supplement is one of the sectors that are too important to make light of. According to the data of AskCI Consulting Co.,Ltd, it is expected that the scale of China's functional food market will exceed 208 billion yuan in 2022.1 Among the functional foods, many are designed as the form of snacks such as gummy and jelly.
Data source: ASKCI Consulting Co.,Ltd
Young generation leads snacks to evolve into health supplements
As revealed by the report from CBN Data, young generation's awareness and pursuit of health and wellness has risen unprecedentedly.2 The market space is vast enough for the soaring demands from young people who sense the need to refuel themselves since they usually stay up late, overstrain their eyes or brains, or risk burnout under different stressors. Over the past years, post-90s and Gen-z has overtaken the elderly population to become the dominant targeted groups for consuming health supplements.
While young generation seeks the product to satisfy their needs, health supplements manufacturers also deem functional gummy as an opening door to cater to the emerging young consumers. CBN Data's report also demonstrates that gummy is the fast-growing supplement form among young consumers.3 In addition to the functional feature of gummy supplements, the novel appearance and the convenience to take in also appeal to young consumers. Currently, most gummy supplements on the market are packaged in a fashionable and lovely way. The shapes of gummy are diverse, with animals and flowers used most. In contrast, traditional health supplements are generally tasteless capsules, tablets, or some granules that cannot be taken in directly, while functional gummy has obvious advantages in taste, capturing the hearts of young people. It even has become a hit, widely shared and discussed on the Chinese social media.
Posts about gummy supplements on Little Red Book, a Chinese social media and e-commerce platform.
Global players are jostling to take the market share
Competition is also growing, as both Chinese domestic and international brands are capitalizing on this market. BuffX, a local rising mass-market brand launched in 2020, had generated over 20 million CNY sales within as short as 2 months after its launch online. Other emerging local brands like wonderlab, minayo, joliyoyo and nelo also jumped on the bandwagon. Furthermore, Chinese upstream raw material manufacturers like Bloomage BioTechnology, as well as crossover pharmaceutical enterprises like Yunnan Baiyao also began to debut gummy supplements under their own brands.
Source: BuffX official websiteInternational brands are launching via traditional trade and cross-border e-commerce to expand their reach to Chinese consumers. To date, there are over 80 gummy vitamin brands launched their flagship stores on Tmall Global, including Vitafusion, One-a-Day under Byer, Olly, Unichi, Nature’s Bounty, and SugarBearHair. Overall, international brands still outperform local brands in terms of R&D, brand cachet, as well as the number and the diversity of products.
International gummy supplements on Tmall
Friendly regulatory landscape catalysts the industry development
Aside from the advantages of gummy supplements and buoyant consumer demand, today's prosperity of this rising sector is definitely inseparable from the support of favorable regulations. In February of 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued "Dosage Forms and Technical Requirements for Health Food Filing (2021 Edition)", allowing health supplements in the form of gelatinized confection to be subject to filing instead of registration for the first time. The new regulation is bound to be conducive to the diversified development of gummy products and bring a stronger driving force for the rapid development of gummy supplements. Meanwhile, it heralds that functional gummy is officially included in the category of health food. All the above facts and signs prove the standardized development of the market is set up.
Since health supplement can only access the Chinese market either by registration or by filing, among which the latter is more convenient and easier, especially for imported health supplement. Industrial insiders pointed out that the inclusion of gummy supplements into filing mechanism was a crucial move to cater to the industry's demand and had greatly activated the market. Benefited from the regulatory dividend, a sound and long-term development can be anticipated for the Chinese gummy supplements market.
It should be noted that China's gummy supplements sector is still in its infancy, as there's a relatively small number of enterprises in this sector compared to other mature markets worldwide. In this sense, ChemLinked assumes it's indeed a good opportunity for imported health supplements brands to enter this promising market at this point, as they can rely on more diverse and mature product lines of themselves and a low barrier of market access. ChemLinked, together with Reach24h Consulting Group, launched health supplements filing services to better help overseas enterprises to seize the opportunity. With successful filing experience, we are capable of handling related consultation and inquiry. Please feel free to email contact@chemlinked.com.
