---
title: "Snack Track: Where Is the National Snack Trend Heading?"
description: "From product, marketing, channel, to supply chain, snack brands are tested not just by single-point breakthroughs but by comprehensive capabilities to survive the long, snowy slope. With the market size growing from 410 billion yuan in 2010 to 1.1562 trillion yuan in 2021, the leisure snack industry remains a prime track, and new players and traditional giants are vying for leadership."
author: "青翎"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2022-06-07"
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# Snack Track: Where Is the National Snack Trend Heading?

> From product, marketing, channel, to supply chain, snack brands are tested not just by single-point breakthroughs but by comprehensive capabilities to survive the long, snowy slope. With the market size growing from 410 billion yuan in 2010 to 1.1562 trillion yuan in 2021, the leisure snack industry remains a prime track, and new players and traditional giants are vying for leadership.

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From product, marketing, channel, to supply chain, snack brands are tested not just by single-point breakthroughs; strong comprehensive capabilities ensure players can go the distance on the long, snowy slope.
Food is the first necessity of the people. Among many consumer sectors, leisure snacks are undoubtedly an excellent track. According to iiMedia Consulting data, from 2010 to 2021, the market size of China's leisure food industry grew from 410 billion yuan to 1.1562 trillion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.9%.
Even with the impact of the pandemic in recent years, many tracks have seen sluggish growth, but leisure snacks have still shown strong growth. China Commercial Industry Research Institute predicts that the market size of China's leisure food industry will reach 1.5204 trillion yuan in 2022.
The long, snowy slope of the track has given many emerging brands the opportunity to catch up and compete, while traditional giants are also on high alert. The leisure snack track, with many competitors vying for dominance, has ushered in a new round of transformation.
On May 27, Mei Huixiang, CMO of Luluguo Orchard; Zhang Guangming, founder and CEO of ffit8; Yao Zhen, managing partner of Toutoutodao; and Hu Lei, co-founder and CEO of Diyi Brand Visual, were guests in the Guanchao New Consumption (ID: TideSight) live stream, discussing how to compete in the leisure snack track.
Core questions for this episode:
In the snack track, which is more important: health or taste?
How to create a national hit snack?
In the snack industry, is channel king or product king?
**Snacks: Health First or Taste First?**
Guanchao New Consumption: How do you define healthy snacks?
ffit8 Zhang Guangming: Young people's demand for snacks has changed dramatically. Previously, the impression of snacks was "tasty but unhealthy, healthy but not tasty." **But now young people don't choose; they want both health and taste.**
This leads to a problem: according to past logic, healthy snacks are hard to make tasty; and users don't eat snacks to fill up; taste + pleasure is the core demand. So, the definition of snacks determines that they must be tasty, otherwise users won't eat them.
How to make snacks tasty? From a nutritional perspective, tastiness comes from high sugar, high oil, high calories, and many pigments, flavors, and additives that stimulate the taste buds, making it irresistible. Also, the protein and dietary fiber content is low, so there's no satiety, and users keep eating.
Most healthy foods are low sugar, low oil, high protein, and high dietary fiber. But protein and dietary fiber cannot be digested by enzymes in the mouth, so the mouth doesn't perceive them as tasty. Thus, the difficulty with healthy foods is making them tasty.
**Previous healthy foods had two problems: first, people didn't pay attention to "how to make healthy foods tasty"; second, they always put on an expert air, telling users that healthy foods are unpalatable and if you want to eat them, you have to endure.**
But in the healthy food track, **taste is the first priority, and health is second.** Therefore, the logic for making healthy foods is: don't change user habits; respect users.
It can be said that the demand for both taste and health has led to changes in the entire market. **From a definition perspective, I think healthy food is food that is tasty and guilt-free.**
Guanchao New Consumption: Is there an "impossible triangle" in the snack field? Are health, taste, and low price mutually exclusive?
ffit8 Zhang Guangming: **The triangle of health, taste, and low price cannot be achieved simultaneously.**
Take biscuits as an example. The original ingredients include flavors, preservatives, additives, and pigments, which are cheap materials. To make them healthier, you need to use protein, dietary fiber, replace sucrose with sugar substitutes, and replace fat with vegetable oil, and these raw materials are very expensive.
In other words, **if you want to be healthy, you will inevitably create a health premium for users**, because from the raw material side, it's impossible to make healthy food cheaper than junk food.
Take ffit8's protein wafer biscuit launched in 2021 as an example. The leader in this field is Nestlé's Qushui Shasha, which has led the market for 20 consecutive years. Our unit price is 4 times that of Qushui Shasha, but users are actually willing to spend more to eat healthily; this is the premium consumers pay for health value.
I think this is precisely the opportunity the industry brings. **The traditional food industry often takes taste and low price as core competitiveness, while the advantage of healthy food is health. Users who pursue health first are at the forefront of consumption upgrades, and then gradually influence ordinary users.**
Guanchao New Consumption: Does healthy snacks have a circle-breaking problem? How to do user education in the future?
ffit8 Zhang Guangming: We do have "blood and tears" lessons in user education. **First, let me give you the conclusion: so-called user education or market education is a big pitfall. Don't think you have the ability to educate the market, educate users, or lead a new concept. Users won't listen.**
The difficulty of breaking the circle for healthy foods lies in always putting on an expert air and telling users what is right. Young people today hate such people the most; they might even think you are a liar. So if healthy foods want to become a daily choice, besides product strength, you need to squat down and communicate with users, look at users at eye level, learn to shut up, and listen to user needs.
Healthy food must first be tasty; only then will users eat it and be interested in buying. Second, healthy food is not a rigid demand; it's a lifestyle we aspire to. Now that the problem of food and clothing is solved, Chinese people are starting to pursue higher life pursuits.
So, **young people eat snacks not to meet rigid needs, but to define themselves with snacks.** In the office, some drink oat milk, some drink coffee, some wear Lululemon; these people use consumer goods to define their lifestyle. **Today's snacks not only create functional value but also spiritual value.**
**Innovation Rules for Leisure Snacks**
Guanchao New Consumption: "National hits" have disappeared. Is the "big single product era" over for snacks?
Luluguo Orchard Mei Huixiang: Big single products definitely have opportunities; big single products represent big brands. Moreover, **in the future, product differentiation gaps will become smaller, and the decisive factor will be brand and resources, so you must focus on big single products.**
During my two months of home quarantine in Shanghai, I deeply realized that human needs are hierarchical. Snacks are at the top of the demand pyramid, a spiritual need.
Snacks are not a rigid demand. When choosing snacks, users are influenced by many factors (such as image, appearance, corporate culture, etc.), which makes the product itself perhaps less important. However, good product strength is the core foundation of a brand, though having only product strength doesn't guarantee a hit. **A national hit requires differentiation in product, technology, image, and corporate culture.**
**So, how to make a good big single product?** First, the choice of track is important; choose a track that everyone is doing. Second, create characteristics, including product, technology, culture, image, etc., and only then have the opportunity to stay and become a big brand.
Guanchao New Consumption: What is the innovation rule for snack brands to remain invincible?
Luluguo Orchard Mei Huixiang: No brand can truly remain invincible. To grow into a competitive brand, I think there are the following key points:
**1. Deepen from product innovation to category innovation.** Pure product innovation may just be what the company itself thinks is innovation, and it may not hit consumer pain points. But category innovation is different; it extracts category characteristics, leads category development, and makes you the industry leader.
**2. Creation of a marketing system.** This includes channels, promotion, communication, etc. Each channel has different gameplay. Most brands don't have unlimited resources, so you need to pay attention to metrics like ROI for single products. Whichever channel has lower cost and can solve the current problem, focus on that channel.
**3. The most important thing is to master the industry and treat yourself as the industry leader.** Industry is the root, brand is the trunk, and channels are the branches. Many companies don't have roots because they haven't mastered the industry.
How to master the industry? Take Lulumei as an example. We don't start from raw material procurement but from seedling cultivation and planting. It takes at least 5 years from planting to fruiting, and you have to invest during those 5 years, but the result is that the influence of the green plum industry expands, and more people come to plant green plums. **As a leading brand in the industry, you need to make some contributions to the industry.**
The consumption boom is not as hot as before. At this time, it's better to make structural adjustments. Companies that don't do real work will be eliminated. For those willing to take root and develop long-term, it's an opportunity; they can get more of the market left behind.
Guanchao New Consumption: Do you have any unique tips for product R&D?
ffit8 Zhang Guangming: **The core of R&D is whether users perceive the difference in the product. Users may not remember your ingredients, but they can remember the taste.**
On the surface, our differentiation lies in unique formulas, global supply chains, protein supply capabilities, etc., but these ultimately bring differentiation and uniqueness in the category.
This differentiation and uniqueness are very important for building a brand from 0 to 1 and for user mind-share recognition. So from a brand perspective, I think in the past two years, the most important thing for ffit8 was to firmly establish the category mind-share of meal replacement protein bars. So when we expand categories, like making protein wafer biscuits, users don't find it strange.
Luluguo Orchard Mei Huixiang: There are two methods for product innovation: the first is Jobs' method, where he creates it himself and others can't understand; the second is to do trend insights on consumer demand through extensive research. For the second point, I can share some dry goods.
**First, use big data applications to supplement things beyond cognition; second, have deep consumer insights, through interviews or focus groups; third, do small-scale trial sales. Use these methods to reverse-engineer R&D and use technology to solve needs.**
Guanchao New Consumption: In recent years, what characteristics and trends have emerged in snack category design overall?
Diyi Brand Visual Hu Lei: Through industry observation, we found that in the past two years, the overall design style of the food category has shown some common characteristics: **more diversified, more personalized, more national trend, and more interactive.**
Traditional visual expression is increasingly distant from today's young people. Today's Generation Z is more inclusive, with more diverse and segmented aesthetics, and stronger national confidence.
In this case, brands also face the problem: which style should I choose? More national trend or more cyberpunk? Simple or retro? This actually needs to be determined based on brand positioning. If it doesn't match, consumers will find it strange.
Guanchao New Consumption: Many snack brands are doing IP. What should be noted when doing IP?
Diyi Brand Visual Hu Lei: IP originally meant intellectual property, but now people prefer to understand it as a narrow brand mascot. Personally, I think the best IP in the snack track is Three Squirrels. You may not remember its packaging or logo, but you will never forget Three Squirrels.
For snack brands, can just having a cute mascot fulfill its role as IP? I think it's not enough; that's only the first step.
IP represents the brand communicating with consumers; it should tell consumers what the brand wants to express, the brand's values, etc. The past one-way indoctrination communication is no longer effective; now you need to lower yourself and communicate with consumers.
So how to play and communicate? Using IP is perfect. **IP is not a simple image; it needs its own soul, persona, personality, and story.** Only if you are a living thing can you represent the brand and communicate with consumers.
When designing IP, **first, it needs uniqueness**; IP should distinguish your brand from others. **Second, it needs fit**; IP should be highly compatible with the brand. For example, snack brand IP must convey a sense of happiness. **Finally, it needs interactivity**; IPs that have become popular in recent years must allow consumers to self-propagate, and some can even achieve secondary creation.
**Channel or Product: Who is the Model King in the Snack World?**
Guanchao New Consumption: In the current consumer market, who is consuming snacks? What kind of snacks do they like?
Toutoutodao Yao Zhen: This question is actually hard to answer. Because today's young people are a group that "loves the new and hates the old," and the concept of snacks spans a wide range, including many temporary and scenario-based consumption, such as snacks for travel, snacks in bistro, etc., covering a wide range.
But from a broad perspective, there are still several categories of snacks with obvious growth, all with double-digit growth in recent years:
**The first category is convenient snacks.** For example, young people who don't have time for breakfast buy two packs of nuts or a cup of milk. This kind of small-pack, easy-to-carry, and easy-to-share snack grows faster.
**The second category is protein-based.** Previously, leisure snacks were mainly for satiety; now they emphasize protein. For example, current braised snacks have significantly higher unit prices than previous puffed foods.
**The third category is foods that emphasize health attributes and are functional.** Current candies have lower sugar content and emphasize health more.
**The last category is long-lasting addictive foods.** For example, spicy braised snacks or sweet baked goods.
Guanchao New Consumption: What are the reasons for the sluggish growth of internet snacks? Channel brand vs. product brand: who is the model king in the snack world?
Toutoutodao Yao Zhen: Actually, the growth dilemma is not unique to the snack industry; overall consumption growth is sluggish. In this process, we need to pay more attention to what changes are happening on the consumer side.
In the early days of Toutoutodao, we invested in many cultural, consumer, and knowledge payment companies. For example, we were the earliest investor in Leke Sports. During the investment process, we found that knowledge payment can solve users' anxiety, but it's hard to truly solve the issue of users gaining ability.
Users' pursuit of health attributes may be impulsive consumption out of curiosity, but exercise itself is very challenging to human nature, and it's hard to persist with self-drive. Moreover, standing at this point in time, we face many uncertainties. Consumers face uncertainty in their career environment and future earnings, which creates anxiety about family income stability.
So, what value does a product truly provide to users, and can this value lead to continuous repurchase and brand mind-share recognition? These need to be considered clearly.
From a broad direction and logic, is the current sluggish growth due to sluggish growth in C-end users themselves? If so, no matter how much you compete, invest, or expect, you can't change the substantive growth dilemma.
From 2020 to the first half of 2021 was my most anxious period. At that time, the industry was extremely competitive; everyone quickly got money and then invested in marketing or product R&D innovation. **But in reality, this competition didn't bring effective user growth. Your customer acquisition costs kept rising, users didn't repurchase, your gross margins shrank, and many were even inverted. It was like throwing a stone into the sea of the internet, not causing a single ripple.**
Back to the snack track, impulsive consumption accounts for more than 50% of overall snack consumption. So when a brand hasn't accumulated enough brand value, how can it maintain rapid growth?
Relying on large-scale investment makes it hard to guarantee profits and efficiency; relying on category innovation brings pressure on supply chain iteration, and in this process, if you lose sight of one thing while attending to another, it leads to overall sluggish growth.
I've been studying the consumer track for many years and have been overturning my own cognition. Everyone says the consumer track is a long, snowy slope. If you think carefully, you'll find that consumption is both an emerging track and a traditional track. Its products and marketing models iterate quickly, but supply chains, factories, and channels need cycles to iterate. If you start with e-commerce or other models and grow from 0 to 1, then from 1 to 10 requires more diversified capabilities.
**So whether channel is king or product is king, I think this is a false proposition; there is no model with a higher success rate. If you only have single-point breakthrough capability, you can't sustain it. Consumer goods look like a low threshold, but in reality, the threshold for doing well is very high.**
In the process, I don't care which point you start from; I care more about what innovative opportunities exist, the possibility of new iterations, and the possibility of scaling.
Many things end up in the same place. Every company can become an independent IPO company in its niche track. It's hard for one or two companies to monopolize the market. Companies will always have their own users, characteristics, and development paths. Every company should leverage its strengths.
Back to the snack field, how high can the technical threshold be? R&D will indeed iterate, but there's no big secret. No matter what you do, it might be copied the next day. And from the consumer's perspective, even if your product is different, consumer perception is minimal.
**So although good products are important, there are too many people in the market who can make good products. Making good products doesn't have a high barrier, and time is a compound interest value, so later, the value of channels will also be very important.**
So whether it's product or channel, these capabilities are indispensable for today's companies. Any successful consumer goods company has very strong comprehensive capabilities.
**For early-stage startups, what you need to accomplish is to make yourself visible; for mid-stage startups, you need to make your users recognize you, and you need to have the ability to drive users in reverse; the ultimate goal is for everyone to follow you. For new consumer goods companies, this is a process of continuously improving your capabilities.**
Guanchao New Consumption: For entrepreneurs, which point is advantageous to start from? Why do some start from product and others from channel?
Toutoutodao Yao Zhen: This question is related to the entrepreneur's capability model.
First, as an entrepreneur, you need to have a clear understanding of your capability value and know where you are superior to others. Many entrepreneurs have a subjective understanding of the track. The BP says a trillion-dollar market, but what does this market have to do with you?
**As an entrepreneur, you need to be clear about what niche track you are in, what innovation opportunities exist, and how high the threshold is.** You can first understand the current state of the existing market, then understand the real needs of consumers, rather than entering based on subjective judgment.
**In addition, the competitive relationship in the entire track should be clearly anchored. Real competitors may be beyond your imagination.** Those consumer goods companies that have already gone public and become famous have stronger survival instincts than you. If you compete with them for the same batch of users at the same time, you must know what advantages you hold.
Source: Guanchao New Consumption
(ID: TideSight)
 **-END-**


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