Even Mixue Bingcheng cannot resist konjac. Konjac snacks appeared in Mixue Bingcheng's Tmall flagship store last year, priced at 0.9 yuan per pack (based on a final price of 27.8 yuan for 30 packs). "Konjac snacks" (moyu shuang) have evolved from an early single product of Weilong to represent a category, with a series of impressive achievements. In 2023, konjac snacks drove Weilong's vegetable products to achieve revenue of 2.118 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.1%. During the same period, Yanjin Shop achieved revenue of 476 million yuan through konjac products such as konjac snacks, a year-on-year increase of 84.95%. Since this year, Three Squirrels has also frequently appeared in the top 50 of Douyin's daily food and beverage sales list thanks to konjac snacks. According to data from the China Konjac Association, the domestic konjac market size exceeded 40 billion yuan in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of about 26% from 2010 to 2020. In recent years, brands eyeing konjac are far more than Mixue Bingcheng, Weilong, and Yanjin Shop, and the treasures brands have found in konjac go far beyond konjac snacks. ZUO一下's konjac jelly (konjac is also called amorphophallus) achieved over 100 million yuan in GMV in its first year; Akuan's konjac cold noodles and konjac cold noodles sold over 10 million units in a single month months after launch; Guchuyuan, Shark Fit, and Aiyan have climbed various sales, reputation, and potential lists with konjac meal replacement powder, konjac buckwheat noodles, and konjac gongcai spicy side dishes... Now, with both the number of brands and products increasing, young people are being surrounded by konjac. From a scenario perspective, konjac foods basically cover the main high-frequency consumption scenarios of young people. From social leisure to staying up late for work, from five meals a day to light meals and meal replacements, from gifts for friends and family to lying flat and feeling emo... in multiple scenarios, there is no lack of corresponding konjac foods. And brands are continuously observing, waiting for opportunities, and precisely feeding.
Konjac Begins to Surround Young People
Konjac foods are entering the consumption scenarios of young people in an omnipresent manner. "One pack for office overtime—filling and hunger-relieving; one pack for home gatherings—refreshing and satisfying; one pack for going out—full of energy; one pack for watching dramas and gaming—enjoyable leisure." In 2023, Yanjin Shop launched the "Big Monster" konjac vegetarian tripe, priced at 0.5 yuan per pack (based on the brand's Tmall price of 9.9 yuan for 20 packs), with small packaging, low calories, and multiple hot pot flavors including spicy, sesame paste, and fragrant spicy. In social and leisure scenarios, konjac family members are everywhere: Weilong konjac snacks, Mixue Bingcheng crispy konjac, Uni-President Xiaowanxiong high-fiber konjac snacks, ZUO一下 konjac jelly, Xizhilang konjac juice, Liumeimei plum jelly, and Tianfengyu konjac bowl chicken are all made from konjac. When konjac switches its identity to a staple food, its high satiety, low calorie, and pure natural raw material characteristics naturally extend it to fat-reduction and sugar-control scenarios. There are also many food brands gathered in this scenario. For example, in the "21-day 10-pound challenge" full meal plan launched by Bohe Health, konjac plays an important role. It is not only used as konjac grain rice in calorie-controlled meals but also as the main ingredient for protein bars, jelly, and other low-calorie snacks. The light meal brand Baoli Unicorn calculates the calories of each cake on its konjac cake Tmall product detail page, labeling it as "customized cake for calorie-control period." The sugar-control food brand DGI notes on its Tmall product detail page for its konjac coarse grain biscuits: "Same as tertiary hospital nutrition department, low GI, low sugar rise, sugar friend meal replacement." Konjac has also appeared in various traditional staple food categories, such as konjac rice, konjac noodles, konjac vermicelli, and konjac buns... Replacing similar-shaped traditional staple foods with konjac foods is becoming a new attempt by entrants such as COFCO, Yili, Southwest University, and Yizhi Konjac. In addition to being a staple food, konjac also appears as "milk tea ingredients." For example, the crispy bobo, coconut jelly, pudding, and sago in tea drinks from brands like Aunty A-shang and Mixue Bingcheng are also made from konjac. Whether in main meal scenarios or leisure scenarios, at every "eating" moment, brands are trying to squeeze in—from snacks, tea drinks, instant food, staple foods, and light meals to functional foods, a multi-category raw material update in the food industry is taking place.
The Konjac Wind Has Risen
2020 was a key development node for konjac foods. At that time, the Chinese konjac market size exceeded 40 billion yuan. Tracing upward from the consumer end, distributors, brands, supply chains, and other parties have shown unprecedented enthusiasm for konjac. Weilong, a major player in konjac foods, witnessed consumers' enthusiasm for konjac snacks. In 2020, its vegetable products, mainly including konjac snacks, achieved revenue of 1.168 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 75.58%. At the same time, another leisure snack company, Weilong Food's product "Weilong Konjac Snacks," was being fought over by distributors. "Every morning I was woken up by transfer ringtones, and at night I was still discussing cooperation until very late," a person in charge of Weilong Food once described the popularity of "Weilong Konjac Snacks" among distributors. Brands eyeing konjac snacks are far more than these two. Beicaowei, Liangpin Shop, Three Squirrels, Shuikouwa, Laiyifen, Bibizan, Haobashi, Haowuwu, and Gege Food... Around 2020, the list of brands launching konjac snacks was long enough. The group standard "Konjac Ready-to-Eat Food" was issued in 2020, making konjac instant food publicly appear as an industry concept for the first time. Weilong participated in the formulation of this standard. Li Jianing, Weilong's public relations officer, told FBIF that the direct reason the brand promoted the standard was the emergence of a large number of new products, pushing konjac snacks from a single product to a category, and the market reached a time when unified standards were needed for management. In addition to spicy snacks, other konjac foods also achieved rapid growth. After ZUO一下 was established in 2020, its products focused on konjac jelly, and within one year of establishment, it achieved GMV exceeding 100 million yuan. Konjac juice/jelly from brands such as Liumeimei, Qinqin, and Xizhilang were also launched successively. Meanwhile, Keep, Bohe Health, and Baixiang attempted to introduce konjac into meal replacements and instant food. The konjac wind also blew to the upstream processing enterprise Yizhi Konjac. In 2020, Yizhi Konjac not only added an automated konjac hydrophilic food production line and began developing konjac vermicelli, konjac rice, and milk tea ingredient crispy bobo for downstream customers, but also started ChiNext IPO counseling to impact the capital market. By 2021, Yizhi Konjac added 516 new customers, including Three Squirrels, Aunty A-shang, Beicaowei, and Jinluo, and achieved annual revenue of 501 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.06%. Entering 2023, the popularity of konjac increased again. On October 19, 2023, Weilong released a new sub-brand "Little Witch" and launched konjac vegetarian tripe in a spicy hot pot flavor. Two days later, on October 21, Yanjin Shop officially announced its new sub-brand "Big Monster" konjac vegetarian tripe, simultaneously launching five flavors: spicy, numbing spicy, sour spicy, sesame paste, and barbecue. In less than 2 weeks, Kouziwang crossed over and released the "Mo Dashi" konjac vegetarian tripe new product, including two flavors: classic Sichuan hot pot tripe and spicy hot pot thousand-layer tripe. In less than a month, multiple food brands successively released new konjac products, which is just a microcosm of the "konjac fever." Konjac is becoming a hot focus in a wider range. From the perspective of product quantity, currently on the Xiaohongshu platform alone, there are more than 30,000 konjac-related products. From the perspective of product sales, in 2023, Weilong's vegetable products, mainly including konjac snacks, achieved revenue of 2.118 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.1%. During the same period, Yanjin Shop's spicy braised snacks—leisure konjac products—achieved revenue of 476 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 84.95%. In 2023, Akuan launched a konjac staple food series, with monthly sales of products reaching 10 million units. From the perspective of whole-network popularity, on the Xiaohongshu platform, there are more than 600,000 konjac-related posts; on the Taobao platform, konjac products from brands such as Guchuyuan, Shark Fit, and Aiyan have climbed one sales, reputation, and potential list after another; on the Douyin platform, konjac products from Weilong, Three Squirrels, and Hi Eat Home are becoming regulars in the top 50 of the daily food and beverage sales list.
What Other Possibilities Does Konjac Have?
Konjac snacks are also jokingly called "human cat strips" by netizens—once you start eating, you can't stop. And "delicious" is just one of the many advantages of konjac foods. Yizhi Konjac once detailed the characteristics of konjac in its prospectus: 1. Raw materials are easy to obtain and low in price; 2. Pure natural, with no regulatory restrictions on scope and amount of use; 3. Strong processability; 4. Konjac products have rich taste, low calories, and high dietary fiber content. With these advantages, coupled with low-calorie and food health trends, konjac has the opportunity to penetrate the food industry as a basic raw material. From instant food to leisure food, from traditional staple foods to light meals and meal replacements, these categories most familiar to consumers have been torn open by brands. "Consumers' acceptance and preference for konjac are high enough," Li Jianing told FBIF. Currently, konjac products serve as Weilong's second growth curve, with annual revenue of over 1 billion yuan, and still have development potential in the future. "The shaping space for konjac foods is very large. Once the basic technical problems of raw materials are solved, products can develop in diversified forms and flavors. This is also a direction we are working on." The high performance of Xida Konjac (the konjac food brand under Southwest University) has verified Weilong's viewpoint to a certain extent. After solving technical problems such as konjac powder clumping easily and poor taste, it successively launched or improved konjac products such as konjac meal replacement powder, konjac drinks, and konjac noodles. Among them, more than 20 products have been launched on e-commerce platforms since 2019, and annual sales have grown from less than 2 million yuan to over 100 million yuan in three years. Konjac silk, konjac knots, konjac noodles, konjac cold noodles, and konjac small rolls have become bestsellers, with single product store sales exceeding 10 million yuan. Currently, Xida Konjac has increased its konjac products to more than 70. With the in-depth development of konjac foods, the trend of branding is becoming increasingly clear. For example, Southwest University's "Xida Konjac," "Qingnai," and "Junuo," Yizhi Konjac's "Yizhi," Weilong's "Little Witch," and Yanjin Shop's "Big Monster"... are all creating a stronger brand sense for konjac foods. Zhang Xuewu, chairman of Yanjin Shop, once said that the launch of Big Monster is only the company's first step in branding konjac products. Yanjin Shop will invest heavily in all aspects, including product iteration and innovation; in terms of price, it will offer higher cost performance to meet consumers' "want this, want that, and want more"; in terms of channels, it will achieve "where there is a store, there is Big Monster," realizing "Big Monster = spicy konjac." To strengthen brand voice and attract more user attention, at the beginning of the year, while Jia Ling frequently trended due to weight loss success, Yeren Daily and Xiri Yinxiang followed the hot topic and cooperated with "YOLO" to launch co-branded low-calorie konjac products. Weilong not only conducted marketing placements in dramas like "Lost You Forever" online, cooperated with influencers, and entered top livestream rooms for brand product promotion, but also launched elevator ads offline. On Douyin, Three Squirrels, Yanjin Shop, Hi Eat Home, and others are also increasing investment in brand konjac product exposure, with a clear upward trend in the number of associated influencers, associated livestream sessions, and associated videos. Taking Hi Eat Home's konjac meal replacement noodles as an example, according to Chanmama data, since this year, its associated influencers have increased from 96 to 668, associated livestreams from 55 to 176, and associated videos from 79 to 677. Hi Eat Home's product sales have also been rising, from daily sales of 500-750 to 10,000-25,000. If the increase in brand popularity and sales is the A-side of konjac foods, the increasing number of entrants and product homogenization are its B-side. "Are these three konjac snacks similar in taste?" A user named "小バ" recorded their confusion on Xiaohongshu after comparing konjac snacks from different brands. Looking at the names, they are all called konjac snacks; tasting the flavors, they are all common hot pot flavors; looking at the ingredient lists, they are all konjac powder + starch + similar seasonings and additives. The "clothing collision" of various brands' konjac products is not an accidental event. Apart from konjac snacks, categories such as konjac staple foods, konjac instant foods, and konjac functional foods also face product homogenization, with the problem being particularly prominent in konjac staple foods. They also mainly use konjac silk as the main product, also have the same ingredient list of "water + konjac refined powder," and even product specifications are around 250g per serving. Brands also tend to be similar in marketing strategies, with low calories and health being frequently mentioned words, even the main selling points. The two characteristics of low calories and health have indeed attracted consumers' attention to konjac foods, but brands still have a longer way to go in exploring new selling points for konjac foods and improving consumer loyalty.