Seize the new market, bottled mineral water rolls up and flows ＂low＂

China Consumer News reported (reporter Meng Gang) that the hot weather in summer is the peak consumption season for bottled drinking water. This summer, the natural mineral water market is very lively, and the mainstream products have been reduced in price, and various brands have spared no effort in the competition of water sources. Experts in the industry believe that with the continuous improvement of consumers’ health awareness, natural mineral water represents the development direction of the whole drinking water industry to a certain extent.

Price competition is fierce.

According to the data released by Academia Sinica recently, the scale of China’s bottled water market has increased from 123.7 billion yuan in 2014 to more than 200 billion yuan in 2021. The statistics of national terminal retail sales in 2021 show that the proportion of drinking pure water and natural water is 60.44% and 18.44% respectively, and natural mineral water only accounts for 7.49%.

Although the market share of natural mineral water is the lowest, it also means that its market expansion space is large. Nowadays, more and more brands have launched natural mineral water products, and the price competition is becoming more and more fierce.

Recently, the reporter visited some supermarkets in Beijing and found that the average unit price of mainstream natural mineral water in the market is further lowered when the price of each bottle is less than that of 5 yuan. The prices of some brand products are already flush with the mainstream drinking natural water and purified water products in 2 yuan.

The reporter went to the Chaoyang Road store of CP Lotus Supermarket, which was on the drinking water shelf. No.I have seen natural mineral water whose price exceeds 3 yuan/bottle. Evergrande Ice Spring, which was previously priced in 5 yuan and positioned as a mid-to-high-end product, is priced at 2 yuan for each bottle of newly-installed listed products; Zhengda Haorun Natural Mineral Water sells for 2.5 yuan/bottle, Baisui Mountain Natural Mineral Water sells for 2.2 yuan in 570 ml, Nongfu Spring Changbai Snow sells for 2.4 yuan/bottle, Changbai Forest Natural Mineral Water sells for 1 yuan/bottle only, and Kelan Mineral Water sells for 3 yuan.

The reporter learned that in addition to the above-mentioned products and brand products such as Tibet 5100, Kunlun Mountain, Evian, Paris Water and Fiquan, more and more new products appear on the market. For example, Yuanqi Forest launched its mineral water sub-brand "You Kuang", the liquor company Anhui Yingjia Distillery Group launched Yingjia Mountain Spring, Haoliyou launched Haoliyou Lava Spring, Yili launched Yike Huoquan, and a new brand of mineral water named "Liangpin Huoquan" was launched in the boutique.

With the increase of entrants and fierce market competition, some high-end products have also adjusted their prices. Kunlun Mountain lowered the price of its classic mineral water products from 6 yuan to 4 yuan; The retail price of Yuanqi Forest’s "Mine" series terminal is lowered from 4 yuan/bottle to 3 yuan/bottle. Previously, the price of Evian water, which was higher than that of 10 yuan and positioned as a high-end product, also gradually declined. On July 29th, a reporter searched on an e-commerce platform and found that the price of a box of 24 bottles and 500ml products was 84 yuan, with an average price of 3.5 yuan/bottle.

Competing for water source

According to GB 8537-2018 "National Standard for Drinking Natural Mineral Water for Food Safety", drinking natural mineral water refers to water that naturally gushes from deep underground or is collected by drilling, contains a certain amount of minerals, trace elements or other components, and is not polluted in a certain area and preventive measures are taken to avoid pollution.

Earlier, Qiao Jianmin, a senior engineer of Shanghai Institute of Geology and Mineral Engineering, said in an interview with the media that domestic drinking mineral water must contain one of nine elements, including strontium, zinc, selenium, bromine, iodine and lithium, before it can be defined as natural mineral water. If it reaches one or more, it will be high-quality mineral water.

Therefore, the core competitiveness of natural mineral water lies in the water source. The quality of water source directly determines the taste, quality, mineral content and suitability for long-term drinking of mineral water.

According to the national standard, the label content of mineral water needs to indicate the source point of natural mineral water. The reporter recently visited and found that the products meet the requirements of the national standard and are marked with water sources. For example, the label of the 1-liter Baisui Mountain product is marked with "Baisui Mountain in Boluoluofu Mountain Range, Huizhou City". The reporter logged into official website of Baisui Mountain and learned that this is only one of the natural mineral water sources in China. The reporter found out that the current water sources of mainstream products in the domestic market include Changbai Mountain, Emei Mountain, Kunlun Mountain, Laoshan Mountain and Dabie Mountain.

According to the report on the consumption trend of mineral water in supermarkets in JD.COM in 2022 released by JD.COM, the water source of mineral water has become a key factor in consumers’ purchase decision, and more and more brands have added water source labels to their products. For example, Nongfu Spring’s natural mineral water brand "Changbaixue", COFCO’s water brand Yuehuo launched "Yuehuo Emei Mountain", Jiaduobao’s Kunlun Mountain mineral water and Qingdao Laoshan Mountain mineral water. Statistics show that since the beginning of this year, the number of products added to water source brands has increased by 67% year-on-year.

In addition to directly marking the water source in the brand, some brands also spare no effort in promoting the water source of their products. For example, VOSS, a high-end bottled water in northern Europe and Norway, has developed the water source of Danxia Mountain in China; In terms of Yuanqi Forest, Yuanqi Forest inspected nearly 40 water sources around the country, and listed the water source of Cangshan Geopark in Dali, Yunnan as the first water source; Yingjia Spring takes water from Huoshan County, Anhui Province, which is the core area of the first batch of national ecological protection and construction demonstration zones, with a forest coverage rate of over 76%.

Zhang Zhaoji, chairman of the Natural Mineral Water Professional Committee of China Mining Association and deputy director of the Institute of Hydrogeology and Environmental Geology of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, said that the higher the altitude of the water source, the longer the natural filtration time it passes, the purer the water quality and the richer and more balanced the mineral content.

Represents the upgrade direction

The above report shows that in the past 12 months, the sales share of drinking natural water was 15 percentage points higher than that of mineral water. However, in terms of sales growth, mineral water exceeds drinking natural water by 8 percentage points.

The rapid growth of natural mineral water market has become a new direction for many enterprises. According to the data of Sky Eye Survey, there are nearly 33,000 mineral water-related enterprises in China whose business scope includes "natural water or mineral water" and whose status is "in business, surviving, moving in and moving out". It is worth mentioning that more than 60% of related enterprises were established in the past five years.

According to the Report on the Deep Development of Bottled Water Industry in China from 2022 to 2027 and the Investment Strategic Planning of Enterprises in the 14th Five-Year Plan issued by Academia Sinica Puhua Industry Research Institute, the scale of mineral water market in China will be about 69 billion yuan in 2020, and will continue to grow at a growth rate of about 10% in the future. It is estimated that the scale of mineral water market will exceed 100 billion yuan in 2024.

Zhu Danpeng believes that because the original categories have been occupied by imported mineral water such as Evian, Paris Water and Fiquan for a long time, the penetration of products in the consumer side is slow. Nowadays, with the continuous improvement of consumers’ health awareness, the whole drinking water industry structure is changing. It can be seen from the growth of sales of mineral water categories that the correct consumption has constantly forced the industrial side to innovate, upgrade and iterate, which is also a very important reason for the industrial upgrading of domestic drinking water in recent years.

According to the data, there are more than 4,000 qualified mineral water sources in China, and the allowable exploitation amount is 1.8 billion cubic meters per year. At present, the exploitation and utilization amount of mineral water resources is about 50 million cubic meters per year, accounting for 3% of the allowable exploitation amount.

Zhang Zhaoji believes that with the improvement of residents’ living standards, people pay more attention to drinking water health, and the health attributes of high-end natural mineral water "natural, nutritious, pollution-free and green" cater to this consumption trend. At present, the per capita consumption of mineral water in China is low, and the consumption market has great potential. How to make rational development, protection and utilization of mineral water resources and how to achieve win-win results in ecological, social and economic benefits of mineral water resources is a key point in the development of mineral water industry.

(Editor: Lu Ming)