Recently, Maotai announced that it would make ice cream across the border. Ice cream in offline stores contains 3% Maotai, 39 yuan per ball; The online platform "I Moutai" sold more ice cream categories and higher prices, with sales of 2.5 million yuan on the day of sale. Nowadays, the price of ice cream has become more and more expensive. The topic of "how outrageous the price of contemporary ice cream" once appeared on the microblog:
"Green tongue" rose from 1 yuan to 3 yuan, qiaolezi from 3 yuan to 5 yuan, Zhong Xuegao even exceeded 14 yuan, and even launched a 66 yuan "Ecuador pink diamond ice cream", which made netizens call for the loss of "ice cream freedom".
However, the high price does not have the corresponding quality. The net red ice cream frequently overturns, false propaganda, "the total number of colonies exceeds the standard" and other quality problems emerge one after another.
After being experienced by "curiosity hunting", how will these online red ice cream retain users?
Maotai crossover ice cream
On May 19, in the lobby of Zunyi Moutai International Hotel, the first ice cream shop in Moutai was officially opened, and more than 1000 copies were sold on the first day of opening.
It is reported that Maotai ice cream has added Maotai ice cream with a concentration of 3% to its raw materials. At present, three flavors of original flavor, vanilla and tiramisu have been launched, with a single ball of 39 yuan.
As soon as the news came out, "Moutai ice cream is 39 yuan a share" rushed into the microblog hot search. Up to now, there have been more than 2400 punch in notes on Moutai ice cream in the little red book. For selling ice cream in Maotai, some netizens joked, "Maotai flavor" and "will the traffic police issue a ticket for driving after eating Maotai ice cream?".
Maotai officials warned that minors, pregnant women and people with alcohol allergy should not eat it. Motorists should take it with caution.
According to China news finance and economics, Maotai ice cream is made according to the proportion of 50g "53 degree flying Maotai" per 1kg of milk, and the specific measured degree may fluctuate. At present, there is no purchase restriction measure in Maotai store. The ice cream sold by minors can be eaten normally, and it does not affect driving. "It is no problem to drink some water after eating or wait half an hour before driving.".
Maotai ice cream may become the "first taste" of young people. Chen Jiajia, a consumer who loves tasting, told bullwhip: "I am willing to try (Maotai ice cream), but I may only try it once and will not buy it again."
"It's really expensive", most netizens lamented that Maotai ice cream was priced at 39 yuan, "it's OK to say if it's 3.9". Consumer Limu also said to whiplash Niushi that "it is too expensive to try".
In fact, this is not the first time Maotai has tested the ice cream industry. As early as 2019, Moutai ice cream was sold in Tianjin for a limited time, including 6 types of Qingxiang ice cream, Luzhou ice cream, Fengxiang ice cream, Cabernet Sauvignon and sweet wine.
On May 29, there were three new prepackaged ice creams in Maotai. The flavors were classic original flavor, green plum boiled wine flavor and vanilla flavor. The content of Maotai was 2%, 1.6% and 2% respectively. The prices were 66/59/66 yuan respectively, and the unit price exceeded that of Haagen Dazs.
The price of ice cream is higher, and users' taste of fresh ice cream is not reduced. The online "I Moutai" platform sold out in one hour on the same day of sale, and the sales reached 2.5 million yuan.
And "Baijiu ice cream" is not unique to Maotai brand.
In 2019, Haagen Dazs launched 7 kinds of liquor ice cream; Luzhou Laojiao and Zhong Xuegao jointly launched "broken ice cream"; In 2020, Zhongxue Gaoshang new grapefruit flavored "youth version" ice cream will be injected into the degree ice cream of Martell cognac; In the same year, jiangxiaobai and Mengniu "casually" cooperated to launch Caramel flavored wine heart chocolate and white peach flavored wine heart ice cream. The price is more than 5 times that of ordinary ice cream.
Recently, Rex Festival ice cream with distiller's grains as ice cream has also become popular on various social platforms, and has even become the favorite of Shanghai leaders. Its average price is between 40-80 yuan.
Why does Moutai also want to join the ice cream track? There are hundreds of billions of markets in this seemingly insignificant industry.
The Special Committee on green agriculture and food nutrition of China Green Food Association recently released the report on the trend of China's ice cream and ice cream industry. It shows that China's ice cream / ice cream market has maintained a growth trend, reaching 147billion yuan in 2020 and more than 160billion yuan in 2021. The market scale ranks first in the world.
According to public data, China's per capita consumption of ice cream / ice cream is only 2.5 kg, while Japan's per capita consumption is four times that of China and the United States is nine times that of China. This means that China's ice cream / ice cream market has great potential.
According to the data report on investment and financing of ice cream brands in recent ten years, since 2015, the investment and financing of ice cream / ice cream brands have become active. In the past ten years, there have been 32 ice cream brand investment and financing events, with the disclosed financing amount of nearly 2.4 billion yuan, with the participation of well-known investment institutions such as Yuansheng capital, H capital and Zhenge fund.
Vanishing "ice cream freedom"
Positioning high-end Moutai ice cream, will it become the next net red ice cream?
In recent years, ice cream has become more and more popular in the Internet, and the price is also higher and higher. Recently, "how outrageous is the price of contemporary ice cream" was once on the microblog hot search. Up to now, it has been read up to 200million times. Under the hot search, netizens called "loss of ice cream freedom".
Some netizens joked that "at the age of 22, I still can only afford to eat 3 yuan of qiaolezi" and "green mood needs 3 yuan. It is suggested to change the name to gray mood!" "Mingming can directly rob me of 7 yuan and force me a piece of ice cream.".
To this end, bullwhip verified the offline supermarket and found that the price of ice cream was generally higher, and only a few prices were lower than 3 yuan. "Green tongue" rose from 1 yuan to 3 yuan, and qiaolezi rose from 3 yuan to 5 yuan. Some netizens said that "I couldn't afford qiaolezi before, but now I can only afford qiaolezi". In convenience stores, ice cream is basically higher than 5 yuan, generally around 10 yuan, and the price of Zhongxue high is more than 14 yuan.
Chenjiajia has always been in the habit of wholesale ice cream in summer: "before, it was more than 40 times. Since Zhong Xuegao and the like came out, it was more than 80 times."
"Zhong Xuegao is lying in ambush in Rosen's freezer, ready to give a head-on blow to those who check out as soon as they take it." Netizens brushed this paragraph, joking that "don't take an ice cream you haven't seen" and "everyone comes in and says an expensive ice cream to prevent taking it wrong".
After the soaring price of ice cream, the mentality of consumers has also changed significantly. Lin Mu said that now he will deliberately find a cheaper supermarket or market to buy it. Such a variety is enough to show that "consumers have been suffering from high price ice cream for a long time".
When did the "summer just need" ice cream become something that people can't afford?
2018 is a watershed year for ice cream prices.
Before 2018, the domestic ice cream industry presents a situation of "three pillars". Foreign brands such as heluxue, Haagen Dazs, Nestle and Baxi occupy most of the domestic high-end market and some of the middle-end market, while head brands such as Mengniu and Yili mainly cover the middle-end market, accounting for about 45%; Regional brands such as Zhongjie bingdian and Wuyang are positioned in the middle and low-end market, accounting for about 30%.
In 2018, Aoxue launched coconut grey ice cream, which became popular overnight and attracted numerous online celebrities to punch in. The price of ice cream was generally pushed up by 5 yuan each. In the second year, Aoxue took advantage of the victory and came out with double yellow eggs.
On the other hand, Zhong Xuegao, the originator of the net red ice cream, was also born in 2018. In that year, a "Ecuador pink diamond ice cream" worth 66 yuan was launched on the double 11, breaking the price ceiling of the net red ice cream again.
In addition, Zhongjie freezing point also launched "Zhongjie 1946" in 2015, focusing on the medium and high-end market, with a unit price of about 15 yuan.
With the rise of more and more net red ice cream, the situation of "three pillars" in the ice cream industry has been completely broken.
In addition, various co branded and cultural and creative ice cream emerged in this process, and the price is not cheap.
It is understood that the joint brand of Shenyang Imperial Palace launched by De's is as high as 18 yuan, while the cultural and creative ice cream in scenic spots and other places sells at a higher price. Limuzheng bought a cultural and creative ice cream of 15 yuan a piece in the third tier city scenic spots with the feeling of "coming all the way"; Chen Jiajia also used to play ice cream when traveling in Macao. Ice cream seems to have gone beyond the ice cream itself, with a punch card and social nature.
Why is the price of ice cream getting higher and higher?
According to statistics, from 2008 to 2020, the cost of raw materials such as milk and light cream for ice cream production increased by about 80%.
Lin Sheng, the founder of zhongxuegao, said in an interview that the ice cream materials are exquisite. When talking about the 66 yuan "Ecuador pink diamond" ice cream, he said that the raw material cost of the ice cream is high. "The cost of this ice cream grapefruit is 1.2 million yuan / ton. It is a kind of grapefruit in Japan. It is semi wild. That's the price. Do you like it or not.".
Net red ice cream overturns frequently
Are millions of raw materials really behind the high prices of Zhong Xuegao and others?
In fact, in 2019, Zhong Xuegao was punished by the market supervision bureau for false publicity. In the decision on administrative punishment, zhongxuegao was accused of using bulk red withdrawal as super red withdrawal.
After that, Zhong Xuegao was also exposed to use mixed tea as Japanese soubei tea; The Irish aged cheese, which claims to have won the international cheese and dairy awards, actually has no awards; The so-called baby grade 14 day degradable straw stick is only made by the common process of disposable tableware; Even the most basic light milk ice cream "pure milk flavor without adding a drop of water" was falsely advertised. After verification, the ingredients list of this ice cream product clearly contains drinking water ingredients.
In the middle of last year, the China Consumers' Association released a public opinion analysis report on "618" consumer rights protection [complaints from black cats]. During the monitoring period, 38439 pieces of negative information related to Zhong Xuegao were collected.
In addition, Aoxue, who is also a net celebrity, is also deeply involved in the problem that the total number of colonies exceeds the standard.
In june2019, Aoxue was listed on the "black list" of food sampling inspection by Wenzhou municipal market supervision and administration because "the total number of colonies and E. coli group exceeded the standard". Subsequently, Aoxue company issued three statements in a row, saying that the refrigerator temperature in the store involved was not in place, which was not the fault of the production link.
Since then, Aoxue has been exposed three times that "the total number of colonies exceeded the standard"
The total bacterial count is an indicator of microorganisms, not pathogenic bacteria. It is mainly used to evaluate the cleanliness of food and reflect whether the food meets the health requirements in the production process. If the total bacterial count exceeds the standard, it indicates that the enterprise may not strictly control the sanitary conditions in the production and processing process as required, or the cleaning and disinfection of packaging containers are not in place. It may also be related to the lax sealing of product packaging and improper control of storage and transportation conditions.
With frequent problems, consumers began to feel that the price of online red ice cream did not match its quality. "Before, they were willing to pay for the so-called high quality. After the negative, high priced ice cream such as Zhong Xuegao made me feel unworthy.".
However, some consumers said to the whiplash that "they will buy if they want to eat".
According to media reports, the head of Youwei Mengniu, Yili and other ice cream brand agent manufacturers pointed out: "in recent years, the production process of ice cream has also improved, and the prices of raw materials have also increased a lot. Now it is normal for ice cream to be more expensive. However, the cost of producing a high-quality milk ice cream, including the cold chain, is only about 7 to 8 yuan."
Zhu danpeng, an analyst of China's food industry, also mentioned that, generally speaking, the cost of ice cream is not very high, but the reason why the unit price of wanghong ice cream can sell more than 60 yuan or even 80 yuan is that it is endowed with social attributes, emotional needs and other added values. In other words, the price increase is more from the cost of marketing.
In the face of the increasingly expensive net red ice cream around us, in addition to finding and wholesaling affordable ice cream, "self-made ice cream" and "self-made ice cream" have also been selected by young people.
They spent more money but didn't match the corresponding quality. How can these online red ice cream retain users after being "clocked in"?