"Affected by the consumption downgrade caused by the pandemic, it is expected that many internet-famous yogurt brands will see a decline in performance this year." Jane Yogurt, a high-end internet-famous yogurt brand that promotes the concept of "no additives" and claims annual sales of 600 million yuan, has recently been questioned by Zhihu users who say its product ingredients are no different from "ordinary yogurt," and that the slogan "Nothing Else" is actually a registered trademark. In response, Jane Yogurt's official Weibo account has "refuted" the allegations one by one and stated that it will resort to legal means if necessary. On Jane Yogurt's official flagship store page, it claims that one of the standards for good yogurt is a "minimalist formula," and uses comparisons with "ordinary yogurt" ingredients and national standards to highlight that its products are "purer and more nutritious." However, in the eyes of industry insiders, the standard for measuring the quality of yogurt is not whether it has additives, and the reasonable use of additives is safe. Moreover, Jane Yogurt's milk source quality is ordinary, the technical threshold is not high, it uses an OEM processing model, and a large amount of costs are spent on marketing, which in turn pushes up its selling price. As competition intensifies in the yogurt segment market with homogeneous products, Jane's performance growth is expected to slow down. -01- "Nothing Else" is just a marketing gimmick On April 2, Jane's official WeChat account published a "Statement on the Article by an Author on the 'Zhihu' Platform Defaming Jane Yogurt," responding to issues such as product ingredients and the "Nothing Else" trademark in the form of a "refutation." The article's author believes that Jane Yogurt's ingredients are "milk + culture + sugar," and "only uses citrus sterol ester or other thickeners that I don't know about, so the ingredient list can say 'no additives.' Consumers will think it's healthier, but it's actually no different from other yogurts, and even the amount of culture added is less than other brands. This way, the product has a marketing point, and with overwhelming advertising and marketing, sales are stable..." Regarding Jane Yogurt's common packaging slogans "Nothing Else," such as "Raw milk, lactic acid bacteria, nothing else" and "Raw milk, strawberry jam, lactic acid bacteria, nothing else," the author also pointed out that "Nothing Else" is actually a registered trademark of Jane Yogurt, and posted trademark search results as evidence. In response, Jane Yogurt stated in its official Weibo statement that it was "openly defamed," saying that according to the national "General Rules for Labeling of Prepackaged Food" GB 7718-2011, ingredients added at no more than 2% do not need to be listed in descending order, but they must still be listed. In all Jane product quality inspection reports, the content of food additives is shown as "not detected," not "<=2%." Regarding the trademark question, Jane responded that when it proposed the concept of high-end additive-free yogurt, there were no similar prepackaged foods on the market, so the company applied to register "Nothing Else" as a trademark. "Jane Yogurt has never hidden the fact that 'Nothing Else' is a trademark; this is also Jane Yogurt's commitment to 'additive-free' yogurt." A reporter visited major supermarkets and found that almost all plastic-boxed yogurts currently on the market contain additives. Old yogurt and yogurt with cheese gimmicks commonly have additives. Yogurts with fruit pieces and grains, popular with children and women, also contain food additives. Moreover, old yogurt, yogurt cheese, and fruit-grain yogurts tend to have more additives, generally three or more types, with the most having six or seven. Counting them, yogurts with additives account for more than 90% of the yogurt on the market. In this regard, Liu Huiping, a professor at the School of Food Engineering at Tianjin University of Science and Technology, said, "'No additives' is just a gimmick, not a scientific concept, and it implies that 'having additives is harmful,' but as long as additives are used within the standard range, they are actually safe. The quality of yogurt has nothing to do with whether additives are used; it depends on the milk source, culture, process equipment, etc." "Take stabilizers, for example. Common stabilizers in yogurt ingredient lists include starch, pectin, xanthan gum, etc., and they are all natural ingredients. Adding stabilizers to stirred yogurt can prevent whey separation during storage and transportation, which is not harmful." -02- How did Jane Yogurt become popular? Founded in 2016, Jane Yogurt claimed from the beginning that it wanted to make a good yogurt that "families, especially children, can enjoy with peace of mind." They believe that good yogurt is naked yogurt: 100% good fresh milk + high-quality probiotics + minimalist formula. To this end, Jane "abandoned all additives," and the ingredient list only contains "raw milk, sugar, lactic acid bacteria, nothing else." At the same time, Jane Yogurt said that a minimalist formula means higher requirements, and Jane has nearly strict standards for the main raw materials of yogurt: multiple indicators of raw milk are required to meet EU standards, basic cultures come from Denmark, and it has specially introduced LGG probiotics, which have the most research literature in the world and have proven effects. It also has extremely high requirements for production processes and even transportation and storage. Meanwhile, Jane Yogurt continued to use the selling points of "no additives" and "nothing else," and successively launched products such as "Sucrose Gone," "Father's Love Formula," and "Sucrose Halved." On its Tmall flagship store, Jane claims that "good yogurt should be 100% good fresh milk + high-quality probiotics + minimalist formula," and through graphic comparisons, it says that "ordinary yogurt" contains various additives such as whipping cream, sodium citrate, glycerol monostearate, food flavoring, and milk powder. Although the industry points out that Jane's yogurt process and formula are not complicated, its selling price is very "high-end." On Jane's Tmall flagship store, 0% sucrose yogurt (135g), Father's Love Formula (100g), original high-protein yogurt (100ml), and 4% sucrose strawberry yogurt (135g) have unit prices close to or exceeding 10 yuan. In contrast, Bright's Ruyi yogurt (135g), which also has only raw milk and lactic acid bacteria and a protein content of 4.1g/100g, has a unit price of only about 7 yuan. -03- Intensifying competition in the yogurt industry In recent years, with the prevalence of consumption upgrading and healthy eating concepts, yogurt drinks have become increasingly popular among young people, and the market has maintained double-digit growth every year. According to the "2017-2022 China Yogurt Market Prospects and Investment Opportunities Report" released by China Commercial Industry Research Institute, the yogurt market experienced a period of rapid growth and exceeded 80 billion yuan in 2015. From 2015 to 2020, due to the expansion of the base, the growth rate of the yogurt market will decline slightly, but the compound growth rate will still be 18%. In 2016, the yogurt market size reached 100.6 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 190.6 billion yuan by 2020. The growth rate of the yogurt market is far ahead in the Chinese market, but due to the limitations of the modern food industry, in order to reduce costs and cater to consumer tastes, various food additives have to be added. In the current domestic yogurt market, most yogurt categories are concentrated in those with added additives. Competition in the room-temperature yogurt market is becoming increasingly fierce. Due to small brand differentiation, the room-temperature yogurt market has long been monopolized by several yogurt giants, and most emerging brands find it difficult to survive, becoming "cannon fodder" in the surging yogurt market. About ten years ago, Bright Dairy launched Mosilian, creating a new category of room-temperature yogurt. Once launched, the product quickly became a hit. Seeing that yogurt was so popular, the two industry giants Yili and Mengniu could not sit still and launched Ambrosial and Pure Select, respectively, to enter the market strongly. Since then, the market has gradually formed a pattern of competition among the three giants. In the eyes of industry insiders, Jane Yogurt's "moat" is not solid. From the selling point, "no-additive" yogurt was first proposed by Bright, and its "Ruyi" product has been on the market for nearly 10 years with no low growth rate. Other internet-famous yogurt brands such as "Le Chun" and "Genki Forest" have also launched similar products. From the quality perspective, Jane's milk source and factory are not self-owned or self-controlled, and compared with the giants, there are many "gaps" in quality. Similar "no-additive" products launched by Genki Forest and Le Chun As of now, nearly 50 companies in China are producing room-temperature yogurt, with more than a hundred brands on the market, making competition very fierce. However, some industry insiders analyze that the domestic yogurt market still has huge growth space in the future, especially high-quality yogurt, which will become the dominant force in the market. Song Liang, a dairy industry expert, said that the rapid development of yogurt in China has made some internet-famous brands successful, but since 2019, competition in the segmented yogurt field has begun to intensify, product homogeneity is serious, and corporate investment has increased. About 60% of brands have exited the market. "Affected by the consumption downgrade caused by the pandemic, it is expected that many internet-famous yogurt brands will see a decline in performance this year." Source: Beijing News