Source | Pinyinhui Observation ID | DrinksSHOW Author | Silas
2026 could be the most competitive year for China's beverage industry. Recently, domestic beverage leader Nongfu Spring fired the first shot in the 2026 summer campaign. The acceptance public notice for Nongfu Spring (Jiande) Xin'anjiang Beverage Co., Ltd.'s annual 7,000-ton edible ice project shows that Nongfu Spring plans to invest 28.42 million yuan to expand its Xin'anjiang base in Jiande, Hangzhou, to produce frozen drinks and edible ice, with a construction period of 6 months. Based on the public notice period (October 10-October 17), the project is expected to be completed between April and May 2026, which is the critical time when beverage consumption demand starts to rise in late spring and early summer, and also highly coincides with the traditional beverage sales peak from May to October. Nongfu Spring's expansion intent is clear: to secure a position in the 2026 summer cold drink market ahead of time. Almost at the same time, Uni-President Group quietly launched a new round of cooler placement plans. According to "Food Edition" reports, Uni-President's cooler campaign runs from October 1, 2025, to April 30, 2026, with this month and next month focusing on scenarios such as "sports venues, two-work-one-garden (construction sites, factories, and parks), billiard halls, internet cafes, and e-sports venues." One is expanding edible ice production, the other is seizing cooler placements. The two beverage giants have prematurely sounded the war drums for the 2026 "Summer Battle."
The 2026 Summer Battle Begins Early China's beverage industry has fully entered a stage of stock competition, with increasing market concentration and a more pronounced Matthew effect. Data shows that the CR3 for ready-to-drink coffee, energy drinks, and carbonated beverages all exceed 70%, while the CR3 for sports drinks, tea drinks, bottled water, and fruit juices reach 55%, 54%, 34%, and 33%, respectively. In this context, industry competition is becoming increasingly "involutional." On the price front, the overall price band of beverages has significantly shifted downward this year, with mainstream products falling from the original 6-8 yuan range to 3-5 yuan, or even lower. On the product front, giants are adopting an "octopus" strategy of launching new products, continuously expanding category boundaries. On the marketing front, "one-yuan exchange" and "seizing coolers" have become the most common tactical moves at the terminal. However, the involution in 2025 is just the beginning. As this year's sales peak season draws to a close and the industry should be entering a rest period, beverage giants are taking the lead in launching the 2026 summer battle to compete for consumers' "coolness." After all, "ice" has become a key element in beverage consumption. Data shows that 79% of consumers prefer iced beverages in summer, and 81% will switch to competing products if their target product is not iced. It can be said that "no ice, no sale" has become an industry consensus. In terms of trends, "ice cups" are becoming a new favorite among young consumers. The "2025 China Urban Consumer Behavior White Paper" points out that the ice cup category has seen consumption growth rates exceeding 300% for two consecutive years, with per capita annual consumption in first-tier cities reaching 48 cups, higher than coffee's 20 cups. Oliver Wyman predicts that by 2026, the scale of ice products and iced drinks in instant retail channels will exceed 63 billion yuan, with an annual growth rate of 39%, far higher than the 8% growth rate across all channels. Image source: Xiaohongshu user @一只可爱崽🌺 Nongfu Spring is a deep participant in this "ice cup craze." In 2023, it launched an ice cup product priced at 4.4 yuan per cup, which quickly became popular through user-generated DIY beverage content on social media. In 2025, Nongfu Spring launched a "plus version" ice cup—the pure transparent edible ice bag—which, with its "sky-high price" of 22.8 yuan for 2 kilograms, once again attracted market attention. "Build high walls, stock up widely, and delay claiming kingship." Facing the strong demand for ice cups among young people, Nongfu Spring's investment in expansion aims to stockpile sufficient "ammunition" for the 2026 summer ice cup market. In the battle for consumers' summer coolness, "coolers" hold a pivotal position. Lin Muqin, chairman of Dongpeng Beverage, has repeatedly emphasized the importance of frozen display and stated that in 2021, the company's promotional expenses for cooler placement increased by 134 million yuan compared to 2020. In an investor research activity in August this year, Dongpeng again stated that it will continue to promote cooler placement in the coming years and take frozen display to the extreme. Facing increasingly fierce competition, Uni-President has taken the lead in the cooler battle this year. Public information shows that in 2025, Uni-President only introduced the incentive policy of "200 yuan per cooler promoted" in December 2024. At that time, Uni-President was also among the first batch to start the "cooler battle." This year, Uni-President has moved the "cooler battle" even earlier, to October. Image source: Xiaohongshu user @陈丢丢 The battle for the 2026 summer peak season has started early.
What Are Nongfu Spring and Uni-President Racing For in 2026? Nongfu Spring's expansion of edible ice production lines and Uni-President's seizing of cooler placements may seem different on the surface, but they both point to a new focus of industry competition: seizing scene entrances. Their early moves also indicate that in the increasingly competitive beverage industry of 2026, competition is no longer limited to shelf display space or distributor coverage density, but has penetrated into the decision-making scenarios of consumers' drinking moments. Take Nongfu Spring as an example. Although its bagged ice sells at a "sky-high price" of 22.8 yuan at Sam's Club, with unit prices several times higher than bottled water, in terms of overall performance contribution, the scale of China's edible ice market was only 6 billion yuan in 2024, and due to high storage and transportation costs and seasonal limitations, it is difficult to directly contribute significant revenue. In fact, the real value of edible ice lies in its social attributes, DIY fun, and quality experience functions. According to the "2025 Douyin Selected Top Ten Trends for Young People," low-cost "rebellion" and "self-expression" have become the lifestyle pursued by today's young people. The emergence of edible ice allows young consumers to break free from traditional consumption scenarios, create and share "internet-famous recipes" themselves, not only meeting personalized needs but also gaining a large number of likes and comments on social media, reaping full emotional value. Nongfu Spring, through its Qiandao Lake water source, ultra-low-speed slow freezing process, and diamond-shaped product design, has upgraded edible ice from a functional product to an experiential consumer product, successfully selling out the 22.8 yuan product quickly. This shows that young consumers regard high-quality edible ice as a lifestyle and social currency. Nongfu Spring's early move into the 2026 edible ice market is a deep penetration into home mixing and social DIY scenarios. In 2025, the "ice + X" consumption habit among young people has gradually taken shape, with ice cups paired with coffee liquid, alcoholic drinks, and fruit juices becoming a new consumption ritual. Through ice cups, Nongfu Spring not only directly brings sales increments but also indirectly drives related sales of its products such as Shui Rong C100, NFC juice, and Tan Bing coffee. As competition intensifies in 2026, using ice to leverage the overall beverage matrix is of great significance. Image source: Xiaohongshu user @没理想的咸鱼 If Nongfu Spring's heavy investment in edible ice aims at scene penetration, then Uni-President's cooler placement is another scene strategy—scene coverage. Coolers are not only carriers for product exposure but also strategic nodes for channel control. Uni-President has moved the placement time earlier to October and focused on special channels such as sports venues, internet cafes, and e-sports venues, intending to lock in ice beverage consumption scenes where young people gather. Consumers in these scenes have a strong demand for iced beverages, and brand switching costs are low. The "exclusive" display of coolers can effectively intercept competing products. These two strategies together reveal a shift in the competitive paradigm of China's beverage industry in 2026: from "occupying channels" to "occupying scenes." Nongfu Spring enters home mixing and social DIY scenes through edible ice, while Uni-President locks in immediate drinking special scenes through coolers. Essentially, both are building their own scene moats. The intensity of competition in 2026 will be reflected in the depth of brand penetration into segmented scenes, not just the competition for physical space, but also the strength of association with "drinking occasions" in consumers' minds. Image source: Xiaohongshu user @燕子 This scene-based competition places new demands on both manufacturers and distributors. For brands, Nongfu Spring needs to support cold chain logistics and high-end channel penetration capabilities, while Uni-President needs to improve the precision and operational efficiency of cooler placement. Competition in 2026 will be a dual contest of supply chain response speed and scene insight depth. For distributors, they must accelerate the transformation from the traditional "delivery man" role to a "scene service provider," requiring not only refined operations of segmented scenes but also improved efficiency in implementing brand scene strategies, and more importantly, providing scene-based solutions to consumers, building new living space through in-depth services. Looking ahead to China's beverage market in 2026, the boundaries between product categories and channels will further blur, cross-category and cross-channel combinations will deeply link in more segmented scenes, and scene-based consumer operations are expected to become the key "singularity" for breaking involution and achieving growth breakthroughs in the beverage industry!