---
title: "Premium Milk Prices Slashed!"
description: "Amid a deep industry adjustment, China's liquid milk market has seen a new wave of price cuts. In early August, Mengniu officially adjusted the price of its premium product, Deluxe Desert Organic Milk, from 118 yuan to 99 yuan per box, a 16% drop. Earlier in May, Telunsu had already cut dealer prices by over 5 yuan per box to boost dealer enthusiasm."
author: "王莹"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-10-09"
categories: "Dealer Operations, Retail Formats"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/fOuoG2ql1a5LMUQRWEoaDA"
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attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/premium-milk-prices-slashed-a3fbe86e/"
citation: "王莹. “Premium Milk Prices Slashed!.” New Distribution, 2025-10-09. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/premium-milk-prices-slashed-a3fbe86e/"
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---

# Premium Milk Prices Slashed!

> Amid a deep industry adjustment, China's liquid milk market has seen a new wave of price cuts. In early August, Mengniu officially adjusted the price of its premium product, Deluxe Desert Organic Milk, from 118 yuan to 99 yuan per box, a 16% drop. Earlier in May, Telunsu had already cut dealer prices by over 5 yuan per box to boost dealer enthusiasm.

Amid a deep industry adjustment, China's liquid milk market has seen a new wave of price cuts!
In early August, Mengniu officially adjusted the price of its core premium product under the Telunsu brand—Desert Organic Milk—from 118 yuan to 99 yuan per box, a drop of 16%.
According to industry media, as early as May this year, to boost dealer enthusiasm, Telunsu had already taken the lead in cutting prices on other classic products, reducing dealer purchase prices by more than 5 yuan per box.
The price of Desert Organic in the Telunsu VIP Club mall has been adjusted to 99 yuan per pack.
If the terminal retail price is estimated by multiplying the purchase price by a factor of 2-2.2, the estimated terminal price drop is at least 10-11 yuan per box.
Unlike the common holiday buy-one-get-one promotions or platform subsidies, this price cut is entirely led by the brand: it directly bears the subsidy for channel partners and has promised "no price adjustment for the whole year."
Other classic Telunsu products have also seen promotional prices become the norm. In some offline stores, for example, the classic Telunsu slim pack (200ml×12 packs) is priced at 36 yuan per box during promotions, compared to the usual price of 45.89 yuan, a drop of about 21%.
Online is similar: the classic Telunsu Dream Cap (250ml×16 packs) is priced at 69.9 yuan per box on the official Telunsu flagship store, while after promotions on Tmall Supermarket, the price is 58.9 yuan, a drop of 15.7%.
Another dairy giant faces the same issue. Yili's Jindian, which has higher consumer recognition, has seen its price on some e-commerce platforms and offline outlets (such as Hema stores) drop from the usual 49.9 yuan per box to below 40 yuan, at 37.9 yuan, a drop of 24%.
Image from Hema APP screenshot.
In some offline outlets, Yili Jindian fresh milk, originally priced at 12.8 yuan per bottle (450ml), now costs only 21.5 yuan for five bottles, equivalent to 4.3 yuan per bottle, a price cut of 66%.
Xietiandi, a dark horse brand launched in November 2024, appears more optimistic than Telunsu and Jindian. It differentiates packaging for different consumption scenarios: regular and gift boxes. For example, the 4.3g Black Soil Juan San pure milk (250ml*12 boxes) is available as a gift box priced at 108 yuan per box for gifting occasions, and a regular box priced at 50.71 yuan for daily family nutrition.
Behind the price cuts of classic premium mainstream products from major dairy companies, it signals that the dairy price war has swept into mid-to-high-end products, which may reshape the high-end value system built over many years.
Why are premium milk prices falling?
1. Supply-demand imbalance at the bottom of the industry cycle suppresses premium pricing.
The expansion and increased production of large-scale pastures starting in 2020 dragged the entire Chinese dairy industry into a painful downward cycle from 2022, compounded by weak consumer demand and severe supply-demand mismatch.
According to Huatai Securities data, the compound annual growth rate of liquid milk retail sales from 2020 to 2024 was only 2.3%, less than one-third of the growth rate of the previous five years.
In addition to the significant contraction in terminal consumption, the substitution of freshly made tea drinks is one reason for the pressure on packaged liquid milk. Industry insiders estimate that this substitution may account for about 10% of dairy consumption. Especially with the rise of the food delivery war, this pressure has peaked.
While consumption is weak, the adjustment of total production capacity lags far behind.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's total raw milk production in 2024 was 40.79 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 2.8%; however, relative to the oversupply that was already evident in the second half of 2022, the adjustment in total output is far behind. This is because production changes among farms are not uniform: while social and small-to-medium farms reduce output and exit in large numbers, group farms, mainly self-owned or controlled by dairy companies, continue to expand.
This downward cycle has lasted three and a half years so far, and its direct impact is that major dairy companies face enormous pressure to digest milk sources.
Information from channel partners of large dairy companies: even in the most difficult times of slow terminal consumption, large dairy companies have not reduced annual targets for regional distributors; in fact, they have increased them, without increasing annual marketing expenses. One of the deep reasons is the pressure to digest milk sources.
To stabilize the breakeven point amid falling milk prices, social and small-to-medium farms have proactively terminated raw milk purchase contracts with large dairy companies (where purchase prices are far below the cost line) and directly entered downstream terminal channels, using low-price strategies to seize market share from large dairy companies, further lowering the overall terminal price of liquid milk.
Therefore, industry destocking has triggered a price war. Extreme promotions like five bottles of fresh milk for 21.5 yuan appeared in 2025, and the market continuously sees new milk brands or faces with "no lowest, only lower" prices, directly weakening the premium pricing power of mid-to-high-end liquid milk and putting pressure on it.
2. Mainstream flagship products of mid-to-high-end brands have been fully opened across all channels.
To digest milk sources as quickly as possible, large dairy companies have had to lift restrictions on some channels for their classic flagship products, which were previously not open to e-commerce and snack channels, and implement a multi-channel strategy. It is understood that to alleviate pressure, a certain high-end milk brand with its own pasture has cooperated with B-end catering companies at a "very cost-effective" price, something previously considered impossible.
At Yili's 2025 interim results briefing, it was emphasized that emerging channels have contributed a significant proportion of Yili's business. For liquid milk, emerging channels account for nearly 30% of that business.
Similarly, information from channel partners: a large dairy company, starting from early 2025, separated the "snack channel" from the comprehensive channel management department and gave it policy preference, for example, channel fees for this channel are about 6%-8% higher than traditional channels.
Premium liquid milk brands like Jindian and Telunsu have fully entered snack discount channels; photo taken by the author.
The amount of fees allocated to different channels directly determines the discount on supply prices for that channel. Therefore, snack discount stores can get cheaper goods than traditional supermarkets, and to boost volume, they sell at lower prices.
Prices of most mainstream products have directly lost control in multi-channel distribution. According to media reports, prices of some brands on e-commerce channels are 30% lower than offline, leading many traditional channel terminal owners of the same brand to resist stocking and selling.
Obviously, channel diversification has both pros and cons. There are more places to distribute, but price control is weakening. If manufacturers have weak control over channels, it will inevitably cause chaos in the price system of mainstream products, risking the collapse of the original market order.
When the flood of price chaos cannot be contained, for brand owners, the price system is out of control.
Consumer behavior in China's liquid milk market has profoundly changed.
From positioning as high-end to "multi-faceted" price cuts, the logic behind price adjustments is multiple and profound, reflecting significant changes in the deep logic of consumption in China's dairy market.
Taking the common 250ml pack as an example, ordinary pure milk generally costs 2-3 yuan, while mid-to-high-end prices range from 4-12 yuan. Now, both Jindian and Telunsu are approaching the price band of ordinary pure milk.
This signals that the underlying logic of high-end value is loosening, and the premium space is narrowing significantly.
Looking back to 2005, China's dairy industry was mired in homogeneous competition and price wars. The industry fell into a vicious cycle of "exchanging price for volume" with meager profits, and the same scenario is happening today.
More notably, as private labels of channels penetrate mid-to-high-end categories, the downward channel continues and begins to affect the price levels of high-end categories.
For example, private labels represented by Sam's Club and Hema are continuously attacking high-end categories. Although brand owners maintain prices at a certain high level, as channel private labels continue to increase volume, prices may further decline.
The price difference between Sam's Club and Jindian for the same Juan San organic pure milk: Sam's image from Xiaohongshu @豆哥的零令仓库.
When there is comparison, there is harm. At this point, consumers will clearly realize that for the same category and specification of milk, the high-end products of leading brands seem a bit expensive.
Compiled by the author based on public information.
When prices begin to fall, it also means that the brand mental barrier in consumers' minds begins to loosen.
Therefore, in the absolute buyer's market of China's liquid milk industry, brand owners proactively cut prices and clear inventory, pulling the quality-price ratio to a new balance, which in turn profoundly affects changes in consumer behavior.
Consumers are beginning to re-evaluate high-end milk with a new "quality-price ratio" logic, rather than simply paying for the high-priced "high-end label," and this is becoming the mainstream belief. In other words, brand owners using information asymmetry to test consumers' intelligence may no longer work.
Therefore, when the price cut trend of mainstream products sweeps every corner, the tide recedes, and once high-end brands gradually become popular among the masses.
Will the underlying logic of high-end be reconstructed?
Time again back to 2005, when Telunsu positioned itself as high-end milk and rose by catering to two key trends: the structural upgrade of the upstream supply side triggered by the introduction of international fine-breed dairy cows and advanced pasture management led by Mengniu, and the undercurrent of consumer demand for high-protein, high-quality milk.
Nearly 20 years have passed, and the "premium" of high-end milk has been supported by the continuous involution of "nutritional indicators." However, with the popularization of technology, the improvement of milk protein and calcium content is gradually falling into "diminishing marginal effects."
How to redefine the "high-end logic" of milk is a proposition that needs rethinking!
In other words, if there is no support from high prices, high-end brands that focus on gifting as a consumption scenario may lose supply and demand momentum because of their "cheap" face; and this is exactly the dilemma high-end brands face today.
In the past, Mengniu, to maintain Telunsu's high-end positioning (not easily lowering prices), launched the sub-brand Jingxuan Muchang to compete with Yili's Jindian at a low price.
The launch of Jingxuan Muchang, which is 10 yuan cheaper than Jindian's same specification, led distributors and salespeople to push Jingxuan Muchang, increasing the risk of Telunsu's visibility at the terminal declining.
The 2025 interim report shows that in Mengniu's performance, liquid milk revenue was 32.192 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 80% of total revenue, reaching 77.4%. Of this over 30 billion, Telunsu-led products account for 40% of the share, serving as the mainstay.
In contrast, Yili's 2025 interim report shows liquid milk revenue of 36.126 billion yuan, accounting for 58.5% of total revenue. Although it sold 761 million yuan less than the same period last year, and 6.297 billion yuan less than 2023, the shortfall was made up by infant formula, which achieved a milestone breakthrough, ranking first in national retail market share and defeating its old rival Feihe for the first time.
Although both Yili and Mengniu rely heavily on room-temperature liquid milk, especially room-temperature white milk, Yili clearly has more room for maneuver. Yili has more flagship products than Mengniu, such as Ambrosial, Jindian (over 20 billion), Yousuan Changyi, Shuhua Milk, Guliduo, Qiaolezi, etc.
So for brands, it is necessary to reconstruct the underlying logic of high-end liquid milk!
Therefore, after the Desert Organic Milk, a relatively advantageous category, proactively cut prices, Telunsu launched a sky-high priced product, "Shajin Taohai," priced at 188 yuan per box, redefining the meaning of high-end with the scarce source concept of "nourished by five lakes, ecological gold of the desert."
This "one rise, one fall," although seen by the industry as price band filling, the operation of "left hand price cut, right hand sky-high price" is more like a signal of Mengniu's reconstruction of the underlying logic of high-end.
Mengniu recently launched a high-end product priced at 188 yuan per box: Shajin Taohai. Image: Mengniu official website.
Re-establishing the sheltering tree of high-end, explaining the value anchor of high-end, and re-gluing the brand value that may be diluted by price cuts of mid-to-high-end products, the purpose is to regain pricing power.
But whether this approach can truly help dairy companies reshape the value of high-end remains to be seen.
Conclusion
The collective proactive price cuts by high-end liquid milk brands are a pragmatic adjustment after the market's adverse trend recedes, and also a re-examination of the past high-end path.
When China's dairy industry moves from "scale expansion" into the deep water of "value competition," how brands that want to show a high-end face again break through the "original logic setting" to build a barrier for a higher "new value paradigm" has become a proposition that most brand dairy companies have to consider!
Reshaping the competitive rules of high-end milk means that whoever can redefine the "new high-end" will occupy the commanding height of the track in the industry!
But the reality is that in the shrinking era of liquid milk market, coupled with the current trend of dairy consumption structure change, telling the high-end story may become increasingly difficult!


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 王莹
- Published: 2025-10-09
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/premium-milk-prices-slashed-a3fbe86e/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/fOuoG2ql1a5LMUQRWEoaDA

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