---
title: "In the Era of Product Homogenization, How to Unlock New Growth in the Beverage Sector?"
description: "After the Spring Festival, a survey of beverage distributors revealed industry-wide anxiety over homogenized products, while consumers increasingly seek quality-price ratio and personalized needs. A honey lemon drink priced at 5 yuan stood out by topping the charts on PUPU Supermarket in its first week, exemplifying a shift from 'handlers' to 'value screeners' and the power of channel-distributor co-creation."
author: "张雨薇"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-03-15"
language: "en"
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# In the Era of Product Homogenization, How to Unlock New Growth in the Beverage Sector?

> After the Spring Festival, a survey of beverage distributors revealed industry-wide anxiety over homogenized products, while consumers increasingly seek quality-price ratio and personalized needs. A honey lemon drink priced at 5 yuan stood out by topping the charts on PUPU Supermarket in its first week, exemplifying a shift from 'handlers' to 'value screeners' and the power of channel-distributor co-creation.

After the Spring Festival, a concentrated visit to a group of beverage distributors in the frontline market revealed a common sentiment. A beverage distributor with 20 years of experience pointed at the mountain of inventory in his warehouse and quipped, "Choosing products now is like copy-paste—same specifications, similar formulas, and even the promotional pitches are monotonous." This remark reflects the collective anxiety of the industry: shelves are crowded with nearly identical packaging, yet consumer demand shows a stark contrast of rational upgrading. While consumers still seek basic functional needs like "great taste" and "thirst quenching," they are increasingly focusing on quality-price ratio and expecting more personalized experiences.

This contradiction is also forcing distributors to shift from being "handlers" to "value screeners." Finding differentiated products that not only meet consumer needs but also enhance their own competitiveness has become the most urgent challenge. Not long ago, a honey lemon drink priced at 5 yuan caught my attention with its impressive data: without any initial promotion, it topped the beverage dark horse chart on PUPU Supermarket in its first week, sold 10-12 bottles per day in campus stores, and maintained repeat purchases.

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In a market where supply exceeds demand and homogenization is severe, why did this hit product, created by the company "Believe in Young People," stand out? What insights does its breakout logic offer to the industry?

**From "Cold Start" to "Hot Seller": The Channel Breakthrough of a Honey Lemon Drink**

When the beverage industry is stuck in a homogenization trap of identical formulas and repackaged products, the "Honey Lemon" juice drink under the brand "Absolute Vitality" by "Believe in Young People" tore open a market gap by topping the dark horse chart on PUPU Supermarket in its first week. Besides its strong online performance, this 5-yuan, 900ml product also showed explosive power in campus channels. "Many students buy in bulk, and the shelves can't keep up. Mixue's lemon water is 4 yuan a cup, while 'Honey Lemon' is 5 yuan a bucket—it's a more extreme alternative to freshly made lemon water!" said a campus store owner. To deeply understand the logic behind this hit, "New Distribution" interviewed the product's person in charge. The person revealed that during the Spring Festival, high personnel turnover made new product launches risky, but the core reasons for "Honey Lemon"'s success are twofold.

**From Trend to Product: Precisely Capturing Demand**

**1. Consumption Upgrade: The Dual Pursuit of Health and Value**

Today's consumers are no longer satisfied with single functions like "great taste" or "thirst quenching"; they want beverages that balance health, quality, and value. "Honey Lemon" uses natural Manuka honey and freshly squeezed lemon juice, with the vitamin C of 5 lemons per bottle. Its affordable price of 5 yuan for 900ml allows consumers to enjoy an "exceeding expectations" experience within their budget.

**2. Scenario-Based Design: Covering Diverse Needs**

In product design, "Honey Lemon" covers multiple consumption scenarios—from women's morning vitamin C intake and detoxification for beauty, to men's hangover relief, to daily consumption by students or families—meeting the diverse needs of various groups.

**From Channel to Execution: Co-Building the Market with Distributors**

A quality product without matching channels to reach target consumers still struggles to achieve sales breakthroughs. The rapid rise of "Honey Lemon" is attributed to precise channel layout and deep cooperation with distributors.

**1. Launch in Fresh Supermarkets, Layout in Campus Channels**

The large-capacity "Honey Lemon" naturally fits family consumption scenarios—the 900ml design meets the need for family stocking or shared drinking. Therefore, fresh supermarkets were chosen as the preferred channel for cold start. During the Spring Festival, the product successfully landed on PUPU Supermarket and quickly topped the sales "dark horse" chart, laying the foundation for market expansion. Meanwhile, "Honey Lemon" entered campus channels with its high quality-price ratio of "cheap and large" and "good taste at a low price," becoming a "shared goodie" in student dorms. Its positioning as an "alternative to freshly made" helped it quickly gain a foothold in the campus market, with sales continuing to rise.

**2. Co-Building the Market with Distributors**

The promotion of "Honey Lemon" did not adopt the traditional "inventory pressure" model, but rather through deep cooperation with distributors to jointly drive the cold start of the new product. For example, Huicheng Food, a distributor focused on innovative brands, is one of the key partners of "Absolute Vitality." In September 2024, after seeing product images of "Absolute Vitality," Huicheng Food became highly interested in its product strength and market potential. Mr. Liu from Huicheng shared, "Since early August, 'Absolute Vitality' has been communicating with us. In the current economic downturn, consumers most need to spend the same money to get good products and more pleasant emotional satisfaction. 'Absolute Vitality' products are tasty, low-sugar, and extremely affordable. Making products that young people like, avoiding competing with top-tier beverage companies in sugar-free tea and 100% coconut water, is exactly what Huicheng Food and our customers need now. Because we believe, we chose to go all in." Huicheng officially promoted "Honey Lemon" to PUPU Supermarket in January 2025 and actively coordinated warehouse resources to ensure stocking and transfer needs for PUPU.

"Honey Lemon" juice drink landed on PUPU Supermarket, receiving rave reviews

"With tight logistics before the Spring Festival, after much anticipation, the goods finally arrived on January 17, and we rushed to ship them on the last logistics run on January 18 to PUPU's Wuhan and Chengdu warehouses. By January 21, PUPU's Xiamen and Fuzhou warehouses proactively requested stock, and we directly used SF Express to transfer goods from Wuhan to Xiamen and Fuzhou warehouses." It was Huicheng's vision and boldness that planted the seed of hope, and as a result, it broke through during the Spring Festival and became a dark horse. "Absolute Vitality" also actively supported promotional resources and product subsidies after listing, a two-way effort.

The success of "Honey Lemon" is not just a product breakthrough but also an exploration of a cooperation model. Through resource sharing and risk sharing, it transformed the manufacturer-distributor relationship from one-way supply to two-way empowerment.

**Making Distributors Product Managers: A Coffee Revolution Through Manufacturer-Distributor Co-Creation**

As channels increasingly demand personalization and differentiation, distributors are more eager for products that are "unique." "Absolute Vitality" broke the traditional closed-door R&D model, not only co-building the market with distributors but also co-creating products. The "Dark Roast Americano" was born from a co-creation between "Absolute Vitality" and a major customer focused on snack discount stores and gas station channels.

**1. Starting from Demand: Capturing Market Gaps**

In recent years, the ready-to-drink beverage market has become increasingly competitive, with sweet tea, sugar-free tea, and other categories launching large-capacity products, but the large-capacity ready-to-drink coffee market has few players. "Dark Roast Americano" precisely targets this market gap, offering a cheap and large, high-value positioning to inject differentiated new products into channels.

**2. Process Innovation: Solving the "Bitter Taste Turns Off" Pain Point**

The strong bitterness of traditional concentrated coffee often turns off many consumers, especially domestic consumers who prefer a mellow and aromatic taste over the sour notes favored in European and American markets. To solve this pain point, "Dark Roast Americano" was developed by an internationally certified professional coffee team, ensuring every step from raw materials to finished product meets high-quality standards. To achieve the unique flavor of "mellow and low bitterness," a carefully designed dark roasting process was used: on one hand, extending the roasting time of coffee beans to reduce acidity and bitterness stimulation, releasing more caramel and richness; on the other hand, specially designing the roasting curve to preserve the coffee's aroma while reducing bitterness, with nutty and cocoa flavors, smooth and drinkable. This "mellow and low bitterness" taste not only retains coffee's energizing effect but also brings a longer-lasting aroma and comfortable experience, jokingly called "coffee that makes workers not feel life is bitter."

**3. Three Advantages of the Customization Model**

The successful creation of "Dark Roast Americano" relies on "Absolute Vitality"'s flexible customization model. This model, with an open cooperation philosophy, fully empowers customers from demand to R&D, with three core advantages:

> **Flexibility:** Flexible production system supports customization of taste, specifications, and value chain, ultimately launching products that meet the customer's exclusive needs; **Quality Assurance:** Relying on Genki Forest's own factory to strictly control R&D and production, ensuring stable and reliable product quality; **Customer Co-Creation:** Through regular brainstorming with customers, distributors participate in the entire process from market insight to product design, no longer being "handlers" but "product co-creators," deeply grasping market discourse power.

**Being consumer-centric and demand-oriented is the key logic for product development and channel cooperation today.** Only by closely cooperating between brands and channels and capturing consumers' real needs can they take the initiative in the market. The return of "Fiber Tea" is the best example of this logic. "Fiber Tea" is a brand focused on the "health tea" track. Earlier, production of this category was suspended, but unexpectedly, consumer demand continued to grow—many consumers posted on platforms like Xiaohongshu looking for purchase channels, and some distributors proactively contacted the brand for cooperation. Eventually, it was spun off and handed over to "Absolute Vitality" for re-operation.

The upgraded return of Fiber Tea is the result of consumers "calling it out." This not only reflects the brand's keen capture of consumer needs but also shows that today's market has entered a "demand-oriented" era. Only by listening to consumers' voices and using demand to drive production can one take the initiative in fierce competition.

**Looking for "Dare to Innovate" Partners: Special Action Guide for Spring Sugar**

Intense market competition and rapidly changing consumer needs also place higher demands on channels: they need to respond quickly to the market and explore "blue ocean" opportunities to create breakthrough new categories. "Absolute Vitality" helps distributors find differentiated breakthrough paths in homogenized competition by co-creating and co-building with distributors, providing solutions closer to the market. During the Spring Sugar event, "Absolute Vitality" will showcase multiple innovative new products and launch various cooperation policies and support plans, exploring the future blue ocean market with distributors who dare to innovate and are good at discovering market opportunities.

**Venue Address: No. 198 Shijicheng Road, Wuhou District, Chengdu (Century City Exhibition Center)**

**"Absolute Vitality" Booth: Hall 8, SD8020T**

### **Order Policy from March 20 to March 31:**

* Orders of 50,000 yuan or more: Reward a mobile phone worth 4,000 yuan
* Orders of 80,000 yuan or more: Reward a laptop worth 7,000 yuan
* Orders of 120,000 yuan or more: Reward a foldable screen phone worth 10,000 yuan


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