---
title: "Who Will Seize the Opportunity of the 250 Billion Structural Adjustment?"
description: "In the past six months, the low-alcohol beverage track has become one of the hottest topics in the investment circle, with multiple startups securing angel rounds from millions to tens of millions of RMB. This article explores the changing preferences of young consumers and introduces Zouqi Qingniang, a new brand that aims to replace beer with a healthier, high-quality fermented drink, targeting a market opportunity of nearly 250 billion RMB by 2022."
author: "陈峰"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-12-12"
language: "en"
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# Who Will Seize the Opportunity of the 250 Billion Structural Adjustment?

> In the past six months, the low-alcohol beverage track has become one of the hottest topics in the investment circle, with multiple startups securing angel rounds from millions to tens of millions of RMB. This article explores the changing preferences of young consumers and introduces Zouqi Qingniang, a new brand that aims to replace beer with a healthier, high-quality fermented drink, targeting a market opportunity of nearly 250 billion RMB by 2022.

In the past six months, the low-alcohol beverage track has become one of the hottest topics in the investment circle. Through observation, multiple low-alcohol beverage startups have secured angel rounds ranging from several million to over ten million RMB. Out of professional habit, I began to think that the Chinese alcoholic beverage market might be on the verge of new changes and opportunities.
Since these are future changes, we should consider: what kind of alcohol do young people actually want to drink? For this question, I seemed to find an answer in a glass of "Zouqi Qingniang" that I happened to taste.
**-01-**
**Low-alcohol beverages are trending; what kind of alcohol do young people want?**
According to CBNData's "2020 Young People's Alcohol Consumption Insight Report," "little drinkers" are gradually becoming the major spenders in the online alcohol market. Both in terms of consumer numbers and per capita consumption, post-90s and post-95s consumers are showing continuous growth, with post-95s having the fastest growth in per capita consumption.
Data source: CBNData
The tide of the "she economy" has also spread to alcohol consumption. From online data, the number of post-90s female alcohol consumers has surpassed that of males, and the growth rate of alcohol consumption among post-90/95 females is also significantly faster than that of males, forming a force that cannot be ignored.
**Of course, over 92% of the alcohol industry's business still comes from offline 'his business' (especially through catering and entertainment channels).**
In any case, it is a fact that young people have become the mainstream consumers of alcohol, and young men in small towns constitute the largest segment of young consumers, with their numbers growing rapidly. Meanwhile, consumption among urban youth is deepening, with post-90/95 young people in first- and second-tier cities moving toward higher frequency and quality, and unit prices are also rising quickly.
The increase in disposable income and the awakening of self-pleasing consciousness have led young people to try more "enjoyment-oriented" consumption choices. Drinking, as a way to please oneself and release nature, has naturally become increasingly popular.
After consulting some data, I found that among consumers under 30, the proportion of high-alcohol beverages like baijiu and foreign spirits is only 10%. Beer (including flavored beer) accounts for 59%, premixed drinks 11%, and wine 13%.
Data source: Internal data
According to CBNData's 2019 "Tmall Alcohol Online Consumption Data Report" released in conjunction with Tmall, alcohol consumption among post-95s has grown 170% year-on-year. Unlike before, their search keywords include "health-preserving small wine," "alcohol-free beer," "high-value fruit wine," etc. **Diversified, personalized, and health-conscious consumption is replacing the traditional single-minded baijiu consumption, and the "Z generation" (mainly post-90s and post-95s) is rising.**
Unlike the "old drinkers" who often binge drink and get drunk, "little drinkers" are more rational, advocating "moderate drinking" and "healthy tipsiness."
For the "Z generation," in addition to low alcohol content, attributes such as taste, quality, and health are also important. Therefore, **light alcoholic drinks like fruit wine and premixed drinks, which have characteristics such as easy drinking and personalization, have developed rapidly, and no leading brand has yet emerged, indicating a blue ocean market.**
However, being in a blue ocean market also means that product quality in the market is uneven. Some alcoholic drinks have been marketed with labels like "health-preserving" and "healthy," and have been sought after by young people. But due to the lack of standardized and authoritative industry standards, quality cannot be guaranteed. Many products contain sugar, acid, flavors, pigments, thickeners, and other ingredients, and are often associated with adverse health effects such as dizziness and nausea after drinking.
So, in the low-alcohol field, if there were a low-alcohol drink that truly uses natural fermentation, with 0 additives, 0 carbs, 0 fat, 0 gluten, ultra-low calories, personalized design, and even fine bubbles, with a crisper taste than beer, would it win the hearts of young people?
Zouqi Qingniang is exactly such a drink.
**-02-**
**Structural changes in beer and the opportunity market for Zouqi Qingniang**
Many light alcoholic beverage brands, when focusing on the "low-alcohol" field, avoid mentioning beer, mainly because compared to beer, their category is too niche. **However, beer, as the largest low-alcohol beverage category in terms of sales volume, cannot be ignored.**
Let's look at a set of data charts first, as follows:
Data source: Internal data
Beer is indeed the largest alcoholic beverage, but this does not mean that a light alcoholic brand should avoid competing with beer during development; beer is not irreplaceable. With changes in consumer groups and trends, the entire low-alcohol category is undergoing structural changes.
First, for the beer category itself, in order to meet consumers' higher demands for quality and taste, low-end beer is declining, while mid-to-high-end beer products are developing and their share is gradually expanding. The overall sales revenue of beer seems to have risen accordingly.
While beer is moving upmarket, overall beer sales are declining. Some young people, after gradually abandoning spirits, are also slowly rejecting beer. Why is this?
From the product itself, beer cannot meet the health and wellness needs of young consumers; it easily causes obesity, and has negative effects such as bitterness and bloating, and is even a major cause of gout. In addition, the beer drinking culture of "not stopping until drunk" is not accepted by some young consumers.
If the rise of Genki Forest is a health upgrade of carbonated drinks, seizing the market of cola and Sprite, then **Zouqi Qingniang will be a high-quality health upgrade and replacement for beer.**
Most importantly, in terms of price, in the past, high-end fruit wines were much more expensive than beer. However, today, beer is continuously upgrading, and the price range it is upgrading to is exactly the price range of Zouqi Qingniang. **Beer's price advantage is gone; except for low- and mid-end beer, all are opportunity markets for Zouqi Qingniang.**
Calculating this way, by 2022, the opportunity market for Zouqi Qingniang will reach 249 billion RMB!
**-03-**
**Seizing the new "Qingniang" track with high quality**
Out of curiosity after tasting "Zouqi Qingniang," I interviewed its founder, Liu Shuo, to learn more about the brand.
He told me that Zouqi Qingniang is the result of nearly a year of repeated experimentation by the internal R&D team.
After multiple attempts with different category formulas, the team found:
If they used the American hard seltzer formula, fermenting cane sugar and mixing with flavors, there would be an obvious separation of alcohol and flavor, which hinders pairing with meals and heavy drinking, and leads to strong hangovers after drinking.
Using fruit wine and rice wine formulas could not solve the problems of high calories and high sugar; drinking too much would be cloying, and most rice wine factories cannot produce carbonated alcohol.
Cider and fruit beer formulas also encountered problems, making it difficult to ensure the stability of the wine body, and both sweetness and calories would be high, not suitable for heavy drinking.
One by one, the plans were rejected. Finally, they found a solution in three uniquely flavored yeasts and natural fruit juices.
To avoid the troubles of weight gain, bloating, and gout caused by the drink, they abandoned grain-based raw materials in the brewing process. Moreover, to ensure a rich flavor profile, during fermentation, they adjusted temperature and air pressure to create alternating peaks and valleys in yeast activity, enhancing the natural layering of the drink, preserving fruit aroma while fermenting sugar to the minimum.
**With natural ingredients and a unique fermentation process, Zouqi Qingniang inherits the crisp and refreshing qualities of beer when paired with meals, while avoiding the disadvantages of beer's "high sugar, high carbs, and high calories."**
Through in-depth understanding, **from business to supply chain teams, the core employees of Zouqi Qingniang all come from AB InBev, Heineken, Carlsberg, and Tsingtao Beer, with an average of over 15 years of experience in the alcohol industry. Its business team has long-term cooperative distributor networks covering major and small cities across the country, reaching over 1.2 million retail terminals.**
The founding team adheres to the brewing principles of **pure natural raw material fermentation, 0 blending, and 0 carbs**, pushing the fusion reaction of natural fruit juice and yeast to the extreme of the palate. They are not just making a product; they are actually continuously developing more flavors and healthier beer alternatives.
It is reported that Zouqi Qingniang has received a ten-million-level angel round from Dexun Investment. Dexun founder Zeng Liqing (one of the five founders of Tencent) stated, **"All new technologies, new experiences, and new business models that can bring changes to people's lives deserve attention. In this era of young people, from new demographics, new categories, new brands to new consumption scenarios, Zouqi Qingniang will be a strong competitor in the alcohol market with both strength and potential."**
Once the tip is adopted, a reward of 400-2000 RMB will be paid.


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