It is worth noting that in addition to the raw materials of Li Guangxing, Bestore also presents Dunhuang IP elements to consumers in more dimensions through mooncake packaging, allowing people to enjoy a feast of collision between delicious food and Dunhuang culture.
There is a cliché saying: Only if you work very hard can you look effortless in the eyes of others. The birth and second "evolution" of BESTORE fresh fruit mooncakes is not only a story about concentration and hard work, but also brings a lot of insights to the mooncake and even baking industry on how to break the "zero-sum game" situation and seek new growth points. The same ideas and templates to learn from.
Innovative mooncake category, technology empowers to achieve "delicious + healthy"
At the beginning of this year, a documentary called "Dunhuang Li Guangxing" became popular, bringing Li Guangxing, one of the famous landmark products of Dunhuang, Gansu, into the public eye. Before this year's Mid-Autumn Festival, Bestore transported Li Guangxing back to the factory from the northwest and "stuffed" it into mooncakes.
In fact, as early as last year’s Mid-Autumn Festival, BESTORE had already prepared to launch Li Guangxing flavored fresh fruit mooncakes based on its insights into the preferences and needs of young consumers, combined with the company’s social responsibility for promoting Dunhuang culture and industrial poverty alleviation.
However, it is not an easy task to combine Li Guangxing with mooncakes or even baking. Long transportation distances, high transportation costs, and difficulty in filling fruits are all problems before us.
The relevant person in charge of Bestore’s product innovation center said that Bestore has launched all-round research and development of Li Guangxing Fresh Fruit Month from the end of 2020. It first selected local high-quality Li Guangxing raw materials, and then focused on breaking through the difficulties at the process level. In order to allow the fresh fruit fillings to be fixed in the mooncakes at room temperature, Bestore has adopted a special "quadruple filling" technology, which adds a mochi layer to the traditional mooncakes to lock in the moisture of the fillings and further enrich the fillings. The taste of fresh fruit mooncakes is enhanced.
Under the same product development idea, Bestore has extended the flavors of fresh fruit mooncakes from 4 last year to 8 this year, and further increased the amount of fruit in the mooncake fillings, so that more than half of the fillings are Fruit additives; fresh fruit pieces and concentrated juice are also innovatively injected into the filling to enhance the "flowing" and "sweet" taste of fresh fruit mooncakes.
This year, Bestore also used sugar alcohol to replace sucrose in fresh fruit mooncakes, achieving a sugar reduction of more than 60% in the product, meeting the consumer demand of "less sugar, healthier".
It should be noted that the sugar substitute used by Bestore, maltitol, is a safe food additive recognized by the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration). However, if maltitol is used in an inappropriate amount and proportion during the production process, it may cause intolerance to some people.
Bestore product development engineer said that as early as when researching product formulas, Bestore had already begun to consider the issue of sugar substitute tolerance. Under the premise of ensuring the taste of the product, in order to avoid consumers' physical intolerance, Bestore went through 20 physical and chemical tests and finally determined a maltitol addition ratio that is lower than the industry level. Based on relevant scientific research data, based on the amount of maltitol added by Bestore, consumers will not suffer from intolerance when eating fresh fruit mooncakes normally. In addition, in terms of quality control, Bestore strictly follows regulations and will send selected samples of products sold to third-party authoritative institutions for testing in advance. At the same time, after the product is launched, a series of self-evaluations will be carried out internally, and consumer feedback will be integrated to optimize and upgrade the product.
Thanks to a series of efforts, BESTORE’s fresh fruit mooncakes have achieved rapid growth in sales, but there are almost no adverse reactions after consumption. As a product with a daily sales volume of hundreds of thousands, such consumer feedback is rare in the entire FMCG industry.
Although Li Guangxing’s filling and the rational use of maltitol are just two cases behind the scenes of Bestore’s research and development, they are enough to reflect the core advantages of professional snack companies.
BESTORE’s investment in research and development has gradually become an important factor for companies to build moat barriers.
Breaking the industry pattern, from building the mind to creating incremental
If Yuanzu represents snow mooncakes and Maxim's represents liquid custard; then, in the minds of consumers, fresh fruit mooncakes are gradually becoming synonymous with Bestore mooncakes.
Last year, as a local company in Wuhan, Bestore, which had just emerged from the epidemic predicament, released four "fresh fruit mooncakes", which aroused widespread discussion among consumers and the industry.
The birth of fresh fruit mooncakes is based on Bestore’s long-term insights into young consumers and its deep understanding of big data.
BESTORE found that as people pay more attention to health and the taste requirements of snack products are segmented and clarified, mooncakes with low fat, low sugar, light taste and light nutrition are gaining favor from more and more consumers and have many advantages. There is huge room for growth; in addition, due to the impact of the epidemic, consumers’ demand for “fresh” ingredients has rapidly spread from nutritional products to daily food.
It is worth noting that by launching and continuously upgrading the fresh fruit mooncake category for two consecutive years, Bestore has firmly occupied the industry's first position in this category and successfully captured the minds of consumers, thus gaining a strong competitive advantage in the market segment. . It can be said that fresh fruit mooncake is a product born by combining traditional positioning theory and new era big data theory.
Through the new category of fresh fruit mooncakes, Bestore has also successfully created new consumer groups and consumption scenarios.
Although the traditional consumer group of mooncakes is the middle-aged and elderly people, Bestore has successfully created a new brand by launching the Dunhuang niche fruit Li Guangxing on the basis of meeting new consumer demands. A best-selling item with no memorable points has been launched to reach young consumer groups. In a sense, Bestore is the first company to apply the "out of the circle" approach of new tea drinks to the snack food field.
In fact, the success of fresh fruit mooncakes can be directly reflected through sales data.
The relevant person in charge of BESTORE revealed in an interview that in recent years, the compound growth rate of the overall market size of the mooncake industry has been approximately 4%-6%; last year, the epidemic had an impact on the gift-giving market, and the domestic mooncake market was greatly affected. However, driven by the sales of fresh fruit mooncakes, Bestore’s mooncake business achieved a growth rate of more than 26%, far ahead of the industry. This year, the daily sales volume of fresh fruit mooncakes is in the 100,000 level, and it is not uncommon for a single flavor to sell more than 10,000 pieces per day. Based on the current good sales situation and industry expectations of a 6% growth rate for the mooncake market, Bestore has put forward a growth forecast of between 26% and 30% for its mooncake business this year.
At a time when the share of the mooncake industry is relatively solid, it is not easy for emerging mooncake brands to leverage the share of "old players" in the traditional mooncake category. By launching fresh fruit mooncakes, Bestore successfully created the "origin market" and firmly occupied the minds of consumers in subdivided categories. On this basis, it successfully transformed mental advantages into actual sales through high-potential channels, and embarked on a path of differentiated innovation.
Deeply cultivate the national trend IP, from culture, ecology to humanistic protection
Since the "Belt and Road" initiative was proposed, Dunhuang culture represented by the Mogao Grottoes has been given a new mission and meaning. Dunhuang culture needs to be excavated and sorted out, and it also needs protection, inheritance and development, and industrialization is an important driver to achieve this goal.
It is understood that as early as 2019, BESTORE cooperated with the China Dunhuang Grottoes Conservation Research Foundation and donated its first charity donation. They also made a commitment that during the Mid-Autumn Festival that year, for every box of Bestore brand mooncake gift boxes sold, they would donate 1 yuan to the protection of the Dunhuang Grottoes. In 2020, Bestore will donate to the China Dunhuang Grottoes Conservation and Research Foundation for the construction of ecological protection forests to help prevent sandstorms in the Mogao Grottoes, so that the millennium Dunhuang culture can last longer and be passed on longer.
In the past two years, Bestore has carried out in-depth cooperation with Dunhuang in terms of cultural protection and ecological protection. This year, Bestore has entered the market life of Dunhuang and brought the processing and manufacturing of Li Guangxing, Dunhuang’s most distinctive fruit, to the market by connecting the consumer side and the production side. This will increase the income of Li Guangxing apricot farmers and extend the Li Guangxing fruit industry chain, allowing the cultural connotation of Dunhuang to be further explored.
It is worth noting that in addition to the raw materials of Li Guangxing, Bestore also presents Dunhuang IP elements to consumers in more dimensions through mooncake packaging, allowing people to enjoy a feast of collision between delicious food and Dunhuang culture.
This year, it is also the third time that Bestore has used Dunhuang mural elements as the design elements of the Mid-Autumn Festival gift box. Representing the "auspicious beasts" in Dunhuang murals, Bestore uses the famous winged horses and nine-colored deer from the Mogao Grottoes to create an auspicious and auspicious look for the mooncake gift box. For example, the design of the "Good Time and Fresh Fruit Moon" gift box is inspired by the free and easy-looking winged horses in the Mogao Grottoes; while the "Reunion and Fresh Fruit Moon" gift box uses the "Nine-Colored Deer Sutra Picture" from the Dunhuang murals, with nine different coat colors. The color composition and the posture are strong.
In addition, Bestore also incorporated fresh fruits into the painting, combined with the mooncake shape of "moon phase changes, time roulette". On the basis of strengthening the imprint of fresh fruits, it expressed its connotation in line with Chinese traditional cultural festivals, allowing consumers to further Feel the good blessings given by the product.
Through its joint cooperation with the Dunhuang Museum, BESTORE integrates the mysterious and profound Dunhuang culture into traditional Chinese food. By organically combining the two "national style" elements, it injects a deeper meaning into the product.
In the third year of "hand-in-hand" with Dunhuang, Bestore has demonstrated the value of Dunhuang culture in terms of products and brands through the traditional festival of Mid-Autumn Festival.
Through a "just right" fresh fruit mooncake, we can get a glimpse of the industry leader BESTORE's secret of repeatedly reaping new category dividends and achieving "elephant dancing"; and the corporate strategic significance behind this and the industry promotion brought by product innovation Value is also worthy of industry attention and social thinking.
