Contents

• Breaking news

• Big corporate events

• Investment and financing updates

• Interesting & noteworthy new products

• Some impressive figures

Breaking News

1. Reckitt Benckiser has signed a deal to sell its Infant Formula and Child Nutrition business in Greater China (including mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan), for $2.2 billion (about 14 billion yuan), to private equity firm Primavera Capital. Read more here.

2. Unilever’s tea business independence plan is well on track. The separation work for the tea business in China will complete in the second half of this year.

3. Chinese premium tea chain Nayuki Tea was officially listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange on June 30, with JPMorgan Chase & Co., CMB International Capital Ltd., and Huatai International Ltd. as joint sponsors. Nayuki Tea had 491 flagship outlets as of the end of 2020.

Nayuki Tea's products.

Big corporate events

1. Arla Foods Ingredients launched a new Nutrilac® organic milk protein designed for high-end children's snacks in China. It also introduced the Premium Kids Yogurt Concept and the Premium Kids Cheese Snacks Concept based on the new organic protein.

2. Martell has launched its first sustainable development and social responsibility project in China -- mangrove ecosystem conservation. It will work with Conservation International, a well-known International environmental organization, to protect and restore mangroves on Hailing Island in Yangjiang City, Guangdong Province. It plans to plant and nurture about 18,000 mangroves in the first year, helping Yangjiang City to become a national forest city.

3. Vitasoy announced its financial results for 2020/2021, which ended March 31, 2021. The group's full-year revenue rose 4% year-on-year to 7.52 billion Hong Kong dollars, or about 6.221 billion yuan. Revenue in mainland China was 5.08 billion Hong Kong dollars (4.143 billion yuan), up 11% from a year earlier, which means business in mainland China becomes the group’s biggest growth driver.

4. Tims Hortons announced to continue to deepen strategic cooperation with Tencent to explore immersive offline scene experience, and plan to open 10 e-sports themed coffee stores in 10 cities across China to appeal to Gen Z. Its first upgraded e-sports coffee flagship store will debut in Shenzhen in August. The number of Tims Hortons stores in China has reached 200.

5. NongFu Spring has received a backlash from Chinese netizens after its peach-flavored sparkling water was marketed sourcing "Atakuti peach" ingredients from Japan's Fukushima Prefecture. Chinese netizens have been highly concerned about the food safety because of the Fukushima nuclear plant. Nongfu Spring then clarified that the advertising words "Atakuti peach" only refers to the unique flavor of the peaches, which was created without actually using the peaches. But the clarification has made Nongfu Spring into the suspicion of false advertising.

6. PepsiCo launched its sparkling water brand bubbly in China. This is the first time that PepsiCo has launched a sparkling water category in China.

7. Coca-Cola launched its first alcoholic drink in China -- Topo Chico hard seltzer. The new product is based on gluten-free alcohol and is blended with sparkling soda water. It is characterized by low alcohol content (4.7%vol), low sugar, and zero fat.

8. Standard Food Group launched a new functional food brand, “Fight On,” aiming at setting Chinese young people’s health needs. Fight On has set up three production lines, including healthy tonic drinks, functional nutrition powder and functional tablets.

Investment and financing updates

1. Oral beauty brand Unomi has raised tens of millions of yuan in the pre-A funding to beef up brand building and optimize product research and development.

2. Snack brand Cui Cui Mao has completed angel round financing of nearly 10 million yuan. The brand uses advanced airflow puffing technology to combine healthy ingredients with popular taste trends to bring consumers healthy snack choices with novelty.

3. Boutique coffee brand Yongpu has completed the A+ round financing of more than 50-million-yuan. The brand has maintained the first position in the domestic coffee liquid category since 2019 and plans to set up the first offline experience store within this year.

4. Boutique coffee brand Sengine has completed the A round of funding from Everyi Capital and Bilibili. This is the company's fifth financing since its founding and its third round in the recent six months.

5. E-commerce wine brand Lady Penguin announced the completion of a ten-million-level A round of financing. Lady Penguin aims to become a wine brand management company to meet the needs of a new generation of young people.

6. The Ready-To-Cook brand COOOOK has completed the A round financing of tens of millions of yuan. The brand provides western, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, South America, and other exotic RTC (Ready-To-Cook) cuisine products.

7. Chinese tea chain ace brand Hey Tea may complete a new round of financing, which would unprecedentedly bring the brand valuation to 60 billion yuan.

8. China's homegrown boutique coffee brand Manner has completed a new round of financing. This is the fourth financing completed by Manner within the recent six months.

9. Boutique coffee brand Santurnbird has completed a new round of financing of several hundred million yuan, with a post-investment valuation of 4.5 billion yuan.

10. Chinese plant-based meat brand Meat Fresh has completed a multi-million-yuan angel round of financing, with an exclusive investment from the Gongshu District Government of Hangzhou. The brand will launch "customized nutritious meals" through    Wechat Mini Program to reach consumers.

Interesting & noteworthy new products

1. Mengniu launched the M8 children’s milk powder using the lactobacillus bifidobacterium PRrobio-M8, the company’s first strain with independent intellectual property rights. The new product targets children aged 3-6 and help improve unbalanced diet among children.

2. Functional nutrition brand SMEAL launched the collagen VC gummy, containing GSH, rose, collagen, and VC. The gummy also adds four fruit essences: acerola cherry, grape seed, elderberry, and blackcurrant, which are all ingredients that can improve the skin condition in consumers' perception.

3. Chinese plant-based meat brand Starfield launched its retail prepackaged product series – 花花零感包 (Flower-colored buns with plant-based meat). The new quick-frozen vegetable meat product is priced at 200g*4 boxes/99.5 yuan on Tmall.

4. Lipton launched its first plant-based "milk" tea, which is based on oat and blended with tea powder. The new product comes in three flavors: cocoa black tea, white peach oolong, and jasmine white tea, and is priced at 19.9 per bottle on Tmall.

Lipton’s plant-based

5. New Hope Dairy launched the Ouqi sparkling water. In addition to the common white peach flavor, it also launched cherry blossom litchi flavor, citrus green orange flavor, and black grape flavor. The most impressive feature of this new product is the Guochao illustrations on the packaging, including koi carp, folding fan, crane, and some other elements.

Ouqi sparkling water’s impressive Guochao-style packaging.

6. Chinese traditional tonic brand DEEJ launched the Colla Corii Asini & Jujube Juice gummy, catering to Chinese female consumers’ nutritional and oral beauty needs. The new product is in the shape of cat claws. Each 2.5g gummies contains 150mg colla corii asini jujube juice and 100mg fish collagen protein. The price is 150g/ bottle /129 yuan.

7. Bestore launched three new meal replacement food products, including the "0 Oil, 0 Sugar, 0 Flour Cake”, the “Upgraded Probiotic Milkshake,” and the “Max Low Fat Chicken Breast.” The “0 Oil, 0 Sugar, 0 Flour Cake” is Bestore’s first meal replacement pastry.

8. Lepur launched the first “skincare” yogurt added with hyaluronic acid from Bloomage Biotech, and aloe vera. The product also contains bifidobacterium longum BB536 from Japan’s Morinunga Institute, which would protect the intestinal health. This new product is on sale at the Tmall flagship store at 149 yuan /12 boxes.

Lepur’s hyaluronic acid yogurt.

9. Yili’s cheese brand Miaozhi launched its new cheese nut snacks. The new product uses two original cheese imported from the Netherlands, Gouda and Edam. It also adds almond, cashew nut, dried cranberry, and hazelnut to enrich the taste.

Miaozhi’s new cheese nut snacks

10. Juice brand innocent launched the new 100% Fresh NFC Juice range in two flavors: orange and apple. The new products are made from fruits from certified sustainable orchards, which means during the planting process, these orchards commit to an overall protection and balance of the local ecosystem, such as water resources, soil environment, and surrounding animal habitat, to promote sustainable development.

11. Fonterra launched five new products in China: Anchor prebiotics children's milk, Anchor children's growth formula, Anchor mozzarella cheese, Anchor probiotics modified milk powder, and Anchor lactoferrin modified milk powder.

Some impressive figures

1. 2021 618 mid-year shopping festival recorded a total GMV of 578.48 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 26.5%. See the full 618 report here.

2. According to third-party survey, Tmall is the central marketplace of new brand transactions during 618. The transaction volume of new brands on Tmall accounted for 82% of the transaction volume on mainstream e-commerce platforms.

3. According to QuestMobile, the number of male mobile Internet users in China reached 613 million as of April 2021. The online spending power of male users continues to increase, and the number of male consumers who spent more than 1,000 yuan online exceeded 122 million year to date in April.

4. According to Nielsen, Chinese domestic infant formula brand Feihe took the top spot with 18.5% of the domestic market year to date in the first quarter of 2021.

5. The Latest Development Report of China's Night Economy in 2021 shows that by the end of 2020, the scale of China's night economy exceeded 30 trillion yuan, an increase of 5% year-on-year. China's night economy is expected to grow to 36 trillion yuan in 2021.

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