---
title: "China's Yogurt War"
description: "In recent years, China's yogurt market has been witnessing a battle for the high-end segment. Consumers see not only traditional brands like Mengniu, Yili, Sanyuan, and Guangming but also new forces such as Jane, Le Pur, Classy Kiss, Beihai Pasture, and Oatly, all emphasizing simpler ingredients yet commanding higher prices. This article explores whether high-end low-temperature yogurt is a 'tax on intelligence,' the challenges of cold-chain logistics, and the future of small, beautiful brands in this niche market."
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published: "2021-11-21"
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---

# China's Yogurt War

> In recent years, China's yogurt market has been witnessing a battle for the high-end segment. Consumers see not only traditional brands like Mengniu, Yili, Sanyuan, and Guangming but also new forces such as Jane, Le Pur, Classy Kiss, Beihai Pasture, and Oatly, all emphasizing simpler ingredients yet commanding higher prices. This article explores whether high-end low-temperature yogurt is a 'tax on intelligence,' the challenges of cold-chain logistics, and the future of small, beautiful brands in this niche market.

Source: Shangyin Society (ID: shangyinshecj) Author: Night Boat
In recent years, China's yogurt market has been witnessing a battle for the high-end segment.
As consumers, we may not know much about this 'war,' but we can feel it: supermarket shelves are stocked not only with a wide variety of yogurts from traditional brands like Mengniu, Yili, Sanyuan, and Guangming, but also with products from new forces such as Jane, Le Pur, Classy Kiss, Beihai Pasture, and Oatly. They all emphasize 'cleaner' ingredient lists, yet prices are rising. It's no longer surprising for a single cup of high-end low-temperature yogurt to exceed 10 or even 20 yuan.
Meanwhile, capital has shown great favor to the yogurt sector, with high-end brands like Le Pur, Jane, and Oatly frequently securing funding, sparking all-around competition in raw materials, supply chains, and more.
These brands can thrive under the monopoly of the 'twin stars' Mengniu and Yili because of the characteristics of low-temperature yogurt: short shelf life and the need for cold-chain logistics.
Since China's cold chain is not yet sufficiently developed to reach lower-tier markets, the already small low-temperature yogurt market has many limitations. It remains a niche segment that the 'twin stars' disdain to seriously engage with, leaving room for new brands and small enterprises.
Is high-end low-temperature yogurt a 'tax on intelligence'? What determines the survival of yogurt companies? Under the shadow of the 'twin stars,' will a group of small but beautiful low-temperature yogurt brands emerge in the future?
This is the fifth article in Shangyin Society's new consumer industry war series. It's long, but reading it will give you a comprehensive understanding of China's yogurt industry, help you see the tricks, and observe the business world rationally.
**Is High-End Low-Temperature Yogurt a Tax on Intelligence?**
If we go back to 2012, some may remember a CCTV host's Weibo post about yogurt that caused nationwide uproar.
_"Text from an investigative journalist: Stop eating old yogurt (solid form) and jelly. The inside story is terrible; I won't go into details."_
Later, others added:
_"A guy from CCTV said, don't eat jelly or yogurt anymore. When asked why, he said, one day you throw away a pair of worn leather shoes, and they end up in your stomach."_
_"No need to be so mysterious. The so-called old yogurt is just thicker, actually with a lot of industrial gelatin added. Industrial gelatin is made from recycled leather from garbage. Jelly is even worse. This should be common knowledge."_
...
This incident marked a watershed, sharply increasing public concern about yogurt safety. The entire market became jittery. Not drinking old (solid) yogurt and not eating jelly became the latest 'dietary guidelines' for the public, laying the groundwork for dairy companies to heavily promote 'pure ingredients.'
In fact, most people have simplistic and biased views about the food industry, such as 'thicker yogurt has higher nutritional value,' 'yogurt aids digestion,' and 'yogurt can help you lose weight.'
At that time, many manufacturers rushed to launch old yogurt, which was different from the traditional, purely made old yogurt. It was made by adding gelatin, pectin, vegetable gum, or other thickeners to ordinary milk to create a thick paste, more like 'yogurt jelly.' Additionally, many experts publicly questioned the nutritional value of old yogurt, leading many consumers to buy yogurt makers for homemade yogurt.
But homemade low-temperature yogurt is time-consuming and unstable: if time, temperature, or hygiene conditions are not perfectly controlled, it turns into a mess and fails to set. Also, while ingredients are controllable, nutritional content becomes unclear. In contrast, industrially produced low-temperature yogurt is stable, controllable, and has clear ingredient lists.
In recent years, the biggest consumer confusion about yogurt is: why has it become so expensive?
The most prominent spot on supermarket refrigerated shelves is occupied by high-end low-temperature yogurt priced over 10 yuan, even approaching 20 yuan. The once-affordable 9.9-yuan eight-cup yogurts from Yili, Mengniu, Guangming, and Sanyuan, or 3-yuan bagged yogurts, have been dethroned, either disappearing or relegated to the bottom shelf.
A popular view holds that 'the production cost of high-end low-temperature yogurt is not much higher than that of regular yogurt, but the retail price carries more marketing and promotional costs.' This leads many to believe that high-end low-temperature yogurt is a 'tax on intelligence.'
**However, such a blanket conclusion is somewhat arbitrary.**
First, let's clarify concepts. What we commonly call 'yogurt,' regardless of fancy brand names, can be divided into four categories according to China's food safety standards: yogurt, fermented milk, flavored yogurt, and flavored fermented milk.
Among these, yogurt is made only from raw milk fermented with Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus.
Fermented milk adds other bacterial strains beyond those two.
Flavored yogurt is yogurt with added flavorings like sugar, sea salt, jam, or grains.
Similarly, flavored fermented milk is fermented milk with added flavorings.
Many manufacturers highlight ingredient lists, such as high protein, low sugar, or zero sugar, but to judge whether high-end low-temperature yogurt is a 'tax on intelligence,' the most important thing is to look at the ingredient list.
For example, for low sugar, is it white sugar, sucrose, jam, or acesulfame potassium?
For zero sugar, is it truly sugar-free, or does it contain erythritol, xylitol, stevia, fructose, or even inferior sodium cyclamate?
Most importantly, for protein content: to achieve the advertised high protein, do they add milk protein, whey protein powder, or use several times concentrated raw milk?
After all, in terms of nutritional value, cost, and technology, the former two are inferior to the latter.
**The saying 'top ingredients only need the simplest cooking' applies to yogurt. For food, the less processing, the better in most cases.** If milk protein or whey protein powder is added, it indicates that the raw milk is not concentrated enough or lacks protein. If the raw milk itself is not rich enough, condensed milk and light cream may be used to make up for it.
Additionally, fresh milk from farm to factory must meet very strict standards at every step, racing against time, which naturally increases costs.
So, whether it's worth the money depends on specific costs of ingredients, technology, transportation, etc.
Even without discussing key ingredients and technology, cold-chain transportation alone can trap many companies.
**The Shelf-Life Dilemma of Low-Temperature Yogurt**
If there were a hierarchy in the yogurt industry, low-temperature yogurt might be at both the top and the bottom.
At the top because, since ancient times, it's believed that freshness means higher quality, allowing for pure formulas—nothing but milk and bacterial cultures, no additives, even legal ones—thus covering the high-end market.
At the bottom because low-temperature yogurt has a short shelf life and requires cold-chain logistics.
In the past, China's low-temperature yogurt was dominated by local dairy companies. Transportation radius determined sales radius, following a fresh and affordable route, with milk stations delivering to homes—a tough, low-margin business.
Even now, although China is one of the most mature supply chain countries globally, the food industry remains a relatively weak link. The cold chain is not yet sufficiently developed, further limiting the already small low-temperature yogurt market, making initial supply-demand balance difficult.
**Domestic dairy giants recognized this and first launched 'ambient yogurt.'**
In 2009, Guangming's Mosilian was the most famous pioneer of 'high-end ambient yogurt' in China, quickly dominating the ambient yogurt market. By 2017, Mosilian's sales had soared 40-fold, leaving the 'twin stars' Mengniu and Yili far behind.
So Mengniu and Yili quickly caught up, launching similar products—Zhenxi and Ambrosial—with similar formulas and positioning. Leveraging their unique channel advantages, they soon regained market share.
Why did dairy giants rush to bet on high-end ambient yogurt?
'High-end' means high prices and high margins, making it a good gift choice; 'ambient' means no cold chain needed, low cost, and strong penetration.
But when this market was already carved up by Mengniu, Yili, and Guangming, other companies trying to enter would be like an ant trying to shake a tree. At that time, low-temperature yogurt was the best oasis.
In 2015, French dairy brand Yoplait saw the business opportunity hidden in Chinese consumers' distrust of yogurt and launched a series of high-end yogurts claiming to be made with 100% raw milk, kicking off the battle for China's high-end low-temperature yogurt market.
In September 2017, domestic yogurt sales reached 122 billion yuan, up 18% year-on-year, surpassing pure milk for the first time. Some new brands cultivated with internet thinking, backed by capital, used unconventional marketing, precise positioning, and niche market entry to quickly carve out a place.
But for many startups without channel and supply chain advantages, while the high-end route might cover costs, high-end low-temperature yogurt loses the advantages of its ambient counterpart, easily trapped by the 21-day shelf life and the underdeveloped cold chain.
**The Death of Change Yogurt**
Change Yogurt is a typical example of 'dying before achieving success.'
Around 2018, fitness enthusiasts might remember this brand, which focused on healthy, fat-free, sugar-free, high-protein low-temperature yogurt.
Anyone with a bit of yogurt knowledge knows that health often conflicts with taste. This high-end yogurt focused on health was destined to struggle in the mainstream.
But the founder's original intention was this positioning, stemming from personal needs—as a post-workout functional supplement to quickly replenish high protein. It precisely targeted a very niche fitness crowd.
Among Change's four products, the highest protein content reached 10g per 100g, and it was specifically labeled as whey protein. Whey protein is one of the main proteins in raw milk, absorbed faster, suitable for immediate post-workout replenishment.
Such targeted functionality prompted some fitness influencers to promote it organically on social media, making it a hit in the fitness circle.
But four years ago, the national fitness craze wasn't as strong as today. People outside the target circle mostly didn't like Change yogurt's taste, finding it too sour and unpalatable. So even though Change yogurt only used one production line at Wondersun Dairy for four hours at night, it was more than enough, sometimes even oversupplying.
Supply-demand mismatch is a huge challenge for low-temperature yogurt with a 21-day shelf life. Unsold yogurt had to be thrown away, and throwing away meant losses.
After four to six months of running the business smoothly, the team achieved a balance between supply and demand. Even then, the yogurt business was barely profitable.
Change yogurt's pricing wasn't exactly affordable; the three main products were priced around 15 yuan, with the lowest actual transaction price after discounts or promotions around 12 yuan.
In 2018, selling yogurt at 12 yuan, why was profit still minimal?
**The reason lies in the high cost of cold-chain logistics.** It was revealed that Change yogurt's cost before leaving the warehouse was about 40% of the selling price, but after leaving, the bulk went to cold-chain transportation, from production line to cold storage, refrigerated throughout.
'It's like working for SF Express's cold chain!' said CC, then marketing director of Change Yogurt, honestly. The company's net profit might not even cover the fees paid to SF Express.
At that time, Change yogurt hadn't yet entered offline supermarkets. Stores like Hema would measure the temperature of yogurt products upon entry; if it exceeded 4 degrees, they would reject it, partly to maintain freshness and partly for economic reasons, as cooling costs extra.
After six months, Change secured its first angel round of funding to validate the model, develop products, and gain user scale.
But a low-margin product line couldn't sustain the company. To expand the user base, Change partnered with Xiaomi Youpin, launching a yogurt with stevia called '10S' for non-fitness audiences, sold only through Xiaomi's channel.
Despite the compromise of using a sugar substitute, 10S still failed to win over people outside the fitness circle, receiving lukewarm response on Xiaomi Youpin.
But buzz was greater than sales. With Xiaomi Youpin's endorsement, Change should have had an easier time raising funds. Unfortunately, timing was bad—it coincided with a capital winter. Interested institutions were only willing to offer 5-6 million yuan, three-quarters less than the founder's hoped-for Series A amount.
After prolonged stalemate, Change lost interest from investors and had to pivot to a low-end strategy, hoping to expand the customer base and later convert new customers to high-end users.
Thus came the 4-yuan bagged 'Live Yogurt,' the last product of a Change that was already on its last legs.
Later, spending hundreds of thousands on Double 11 marketing, Change achieved impressive sales, but overall it still lost money.
Most fatally, this marketing push maxed out the production line at once, making future sales and production even harder to predict. Several times, oversupply led to wasted costs, and eventually, Change Yogurt's capital chain broke. The boss fled, and internal wage disputes remain unresolved to this day.
Until the second half of 2019, some netizens still lamented online, 'Why can't I buy Change yogurt anymore?' indicating that its products did gain recognition from some users.
During the same period, Le Pur and Jane, with different positioning, shared similar customer groups. The former was healthy and tasty yogurt; the latter was professional fitness yogurt. Le Pur and Jane went too far and too ahead, turning from 'pioneers' into 'martyrs.'
Users need time to be educated and cultivated. Sugar-free cola has been around for years and has always been criticized for tasting bad. No one thought that it would be under the leadership of Genki Forest that all beverages would catch the zero-sugar craze in recent years.
Unlike beverages, yogurt is an industry with high entry barriers. If you only differentiate by flavor, it's fine, but if you pursue functionality, R&D investment is unavoidable.
Change's team basically had no relevant industry background. They entered out of momentary idealism, with only one external expert and thousands of users providing feedback from a needs perspective. After several product iterations, they emotionally moved the first batch of seed users and successfully entered the market with a hit-product mindset, but they severely lacked innovation in subsequent releases.
**Insufficient homework on the industry and user insights was also a deep reason for Change's failure.**
Even now, yogurt brands that aggressively choose sugar-free and fat-free options struggle to enter the mainstream. Even Jane Yogurt, which promotes 'clean labels and minimalist formulas,' hasn't dared to remove sugar from all its products.
Jane tells the story of fatherly love with its minimalist formula. The large 'Father's Love Formula' on the packaging is puzzling at first glance, but it actually targets the father group long ignored by the food market.
The mother audience is fiercely competitive, a red ocean. Women consider many factors when buying yogurt for the family, such as ingredients, taste, value for money, appearance, and production date. Men are more direct—what does this have to do with me? Jane straightforwardly brings implicit fatherly love to the forefront, simple and touching.
Le Pur tells the story of elite entrepreneurship—a Columbia graduate, who gave up her career as a reporter and anchor at a Chinese TV station in the US, started a business with her Wharton MBA husband, using German top-notch filtered whey yogurt technology to create a filtered whey yogurt with three times the purity and nutrition of regular yogurt.
The elite lifestyle captured a large number of urban white-collar workers. Every point was highly buzzworthy, using various social platforms to reach users point-to-point, quickly breaking out.
Then came Classy Kiss, Beihai Pasture, Oatly, and others, carving out a niche in the gaps that dairy giants disdained, leading to a fragmented market and a war that continues to this day.
**The Battle for Milk Sources Among Yogurt Companies**
High-end low-temperature yogurt has been continuously upgrading because as production technology iterates and consumer awareness updates, the standards for 'high-end' are also changing. Staying still means being abandoned by the market.
**To thrive, yogurt companies must fight for milk sources from the start.**
Initially, ordinary yogurt relied on adding gelatin and other gums to increase viscosity. Not using gelatin but choosing whey protein powder was considered high-end at first. Adding light cream to improve taste was also a 'blood cost' only high-end yogurt would bear.
Now, high-end products use filtered whey technology to enhance thickness. Whey protein powder and light cream, once considered extra conscience additions, are now seen as indicators that the raw milk itself isn't concentrated enough.
For example, Oatly promotes 'four times concentration,' using the concentrated essence of four cups of raw milk to produce one cup of fresh cheese. Guangming's Rushi uses membrane filtration, flash evaporation, and other technologies to significantly increase protein content per unit mass of milk.
The national standard for yogurt milk protein is at least 2.3g per 100g. Many yogurt manufacturers advertise multiple times the protein based on this 2.3g unit.
Even if all claim multiple times the protein, there's still an information gap. Not all high-end yogurt manufacturers use pure concentrated raw milk or rely on black-tech processing. One reason is to reduce costs; another is that they may not have access to good milk sources.
**High-quality raw milk upstream is highly scarce.** In 2020, domestic raw milk production was 34.4 million tons, with a self-sufficiency rate of 64.6%.
Raw milk production has high costs, low profits, and high risks. New Zealand dairy company Fonterra once built farms in China but found farming costs far exceeded those in New Zealand.
Fonterra publicly stated: 'We produce the most expensive milk in the world in China.' After continuous losses, at the end of 2020, Fonterra sold its self-owned farms in China to Yili and Sanyuan for about 2.5 billion yuan.
According to China Business News, 'Currently, almost all large domestic farms have found their owners, leaving only some large farms in Heilongjiang and Xinjiang operating independently.'
In the past, people defined yogurt as a beverage, and only pursuing taste and flavor could create hit products and build a product matrix. Such requirements could be met by reconstituted milk or ordinary raw milk. Now, high-end yogurt gradually has food attributes, with ingredients approaching fresh milk, requiring minimal processing and additives, while being healthy and functional.
To this end, yogurt companies need to seize the initiative at the source, investing heavily in the supply chain that was previously only emphasized by fresh milk brands.
**The high prices of new yogurt forces, long criticized, are largely due to their lack of own farms and factories; they rely on OEM, making it hard to reduce costs.** According to statistics, only 30% of new yogurt forces have their own supply chains.
Dairy expert Song Liang disagrees with some new brands that, after funding, increase investment in farms and supply chains. He believes the dairy industry is asset-heavy and highly specialized. New forces should focus on marketing and product innovation.
Supply chain investment will inevitably lose to regional leaders and even more so to the 'twin stars.' It's just to tell an asset story, boost valuation, and facilitate the next round of financing and listing.
OEM is not a beast; as long as production reaches scale, there's bargaining power at every level. Yogurt, in particular, is a category that needs scale. Only when sales reach a certain level can production and transportation costs significantly decrease, allowing the company to profit.
But achieving scale requires marketing costs. For many OEM new forces, being expensive is unavoidable.
**Besides milk protein content, good bacterial strains are another battlefield for high-end low-temperature yogurt.**
Mai, a yogurt enthusiast, has his own method to test bacterial activity. He uses purchased yogurt as a starter for secondary fermentation, observing the texture and setting of the result.
Under the same time, temperature, and milk conditions, Mai found that Jane's yogurt fermented into the thinnest, but Jane's own taste was the best in his opinion. He concluded that Jane sacrifices the degree of fermentation or activity of the strains for taste.
The national standard for yogurt only requires Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. In fact, these two strains are more important for fermentation itself. Although they can help balance gut flora after entering the body, most are killed by stomach acid, so their actual effect is minimal.
Strains like Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Bifidobacterium, which sound intimidating, are the real probiotics that can pass through stomach acid and continuously work in the gut.
**Some compare bacterial strains in yogurt to chips in the communications industry, but the addition of strains is rarely clearly reflected at the consumer-perceivable level.**
The new high-end yogurt brand 'Live for Life,' developed by Ningxia local dairy Pingjibao Yogurt with Jiangnan University, uses patented core strains as a selling point, gaining a following in Xiaomi Youpin's small circle. But a high price of nearly 20 yuan for a 220g bottle raises concerns about breaking out of the niche.
**Technological Involution in Yogurt**
**In terms of yogurt processing technology, it's hard to achieve disruptive changes, not just in China but worldwide.**
Although improvements in technical details and quality can greatly enhance product competitiveness, such competitiveness is not solid. As soon as a new product is recognized by the market, similar companies quickly swarm in.
But unlike many countries, China's high-end low-temperature yogurt market is very fragmented. Song Liang compares it to the European yogurt market, where different provinces' preferences are like different countries, with varying consumption levels and tastes, making it hard for one big category to dominate, thus allowing for a hundred flowers to bloom.
If calculating input-output ratio, for the 'twin stars,' only gift-box packaging that can be sold year-round can fully utilize their nationwide channel advantages. Festivals are absolute peak seasons.
But the high-end low-temperature yogurt category doesn't achieve the ideal scale effect; it's a too-small niche market that giants disdain to enter, leaving room for new brands and small enterprises.
According to a Haitong International research report, 'Over a longer cycle, Yili aims to become a health food company like Nestlé, not just limited to the dairy industry... Mengniu's future is relatively more focused, continuously improving and strengthening in various dairy subfields to become a global dairy leader.'
The 'twin stars' don't even have high-protein low-temperature yogurt products like pure raw milk. Although their product lines are long, covering low, mid, mid-high, high, and ultra-high-end markets, their ultra-high-end products are not on the same level as new brands.
Yili's high-end line, Pariti Cheese Yogurt, has disappeared from public view. Its high-end representative, Ambrosial, only has ambient products.
Mengniu's Guanyiru has 2.9g protein per 100g, with white sugar, fructooligosaccharides, and milk protein powder in the ingredients. Its sub-brand Telunsu, targeting high-end consumers, also ventures into low-temperature yogurt with 3.6g protein per 100g, containing white sugar and concentrated milk protein powder. **It's just a polite appearance in this track, not a serious move.**
**Old and New Yogurt Forces Play Their Own Games**
**Matching the fragmented high-end low-temperature yogurt market, in marketing, traditional brands and new forces are also divided, each playing their own game with no overlap.**
This is quite different from car manufacturing. The article 'Traditional Car Companies Fall into New Forces' Trap' mentioned that when discussing the fierce battle between traditional car companies and new forces, a marketing executive from a traditional car company lamented that the market rhythm is now completely controlled by new car forces, and they have to follow their playbook, which has become the new normal.
After the pandemic, new yogurt forces have been more conservative in public channel marketing, focusing more on user operation and maintenance. In contrast, Mengniu and Yili are visibly spending money on sponsorships of popular variety shows.
Yogurt enthusiasts Mai and dido can't remember when they last saw a Le Pur ad. Their first purchase of Le Pur was because they were curious about the nearly 20-yuan price in the supermarket refrigerated case, passively occupying their minds.
After a dairy industry summit, Lin Qing, who works at an outdoor advertising company, eagerly added WeChat contacts of dairy company marketing staff to promote her bus shelter ads.
New brands like 'Adopt a Cow' avoided her, while traditional brands were more receptive. In interviews with self-media, regional leaders like Sanyuan showed little interest, repeatedly emphasizing they only cooperate with official media.
**But new brands are more likely to take aggressive marketing paths.**
When high protein and live strains no longer suffice for promotion, various effects like beauty and immunity enhancement become the next growth points.
A recent penalty against Blueglass Yogurt might serve as a warning to the industry. Blueglass Yogurt's affiliated company, Beijing Yuehuo Catering Management Co., Ltd., was fined 60,000 yuan by the Chaoyang District Market Supervision Administration for violating Article 28, Paragraph 2, Item (4) of the Advertising Law: 'fabricating the effects of using goods or receiving services in false advertising.'
Subsequently, promotional phrases like 'super antioxidant effect,' 'enhance immunity,' 'beauty and skincare,' and 'delay aging' on Blueglass Yogurt's WeChat mini-program were deleted.
This is exactly what happened to Danone yogurt in the US ten years ago. In 2010, Danone was targeted by the government for advertising that its yogurt could prevent colds and aid digestion, ultimately paying $21 million in damages and pulling the ads.
China's yogurt industry follows Europe, America, and Japan step by step, not even avoiding the same pitfalls.
After a round of technology and ingredient upgrades, today's domestic high-end low-temperature yogurt quality can match Europe, America, and even Japan. But the fly in the ointment is that domestic high-end low-temperature yogurt is indeed expensive.
Song Liang believes that so far, the dividend period for high-end yogurt development in China has ended. First, consumption is downgrading, unable to support such expensive pricing. Second, from the product side, homogenization is too severe.
The most typical example is Jane, which focuses on '0 sucrose' and clean labels, now appearing somewhat indistinct among current high-end yogurt brands. What was once a unique selling point has become the minimum requirement for the entire niche market.
**In the long run, price cuts are inevitable.**
**Will a Group of Small but Beautiful Brands Emerge?**
After Change Yogurt's collapse, CC continues to follow the entire yogurt industry. He feels that the 'twin stars' are like BTA in the internet ecosystem, leveraging their early channel and supply chain advantages to deliver a dimensionality reduction strike against innovative dairy companies.
Even resilient Guangming, which developed a cross-era product like Mosilian, couldn't hold its advantage. **The activity in the high-end low-temperature yogurt field is purely because the 'twin stars' look down on such small profits, ultimately forcing consumers to pay unnecessary premiums.**
But after BTA, TMD rose. Can anyone in the dairy industry topple the 'twin stars'? Let's see today.
Oatly, which recently received tens of millions of yuan in angel funding, is a formidable wave in the high-end low-temperature yogurt field. Its advantage lies in its founder Wang Weijian's local dairy company Kangnuo Food, established in Handan, Hebei in 1997, providing mature supply chain support.
The transformation of regional dairy leaders might be easier to survive and thrive in this limited and high-barrier track than complete newcomers.
Tang Binsen, founder of Genki Forest, once described his vision of 'future brands' at a conference: 'I think there will be a group of companies in the future, with only a hundred people, serving only a million people, but they can live for a hundred years. I hope China will see many such focused, specialized, small but beautiful enterprises.'
**Will the best future ecosystem for China's low-temperature yogurt, neglected by the monopolistic 'twin stars,' also consist of a group of small but beautiful brands?**
**Are you 'watching' me?**


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