The meal replacement market is developing vigorously both at home and abroad. According to Euromonitor data, the global meal replacement market reached US$66.16 billion (462.33 billion yuan) in 2017, of which the United States reached US$24.6 billion (171.9 billion yuan), and the United States is expected to see a market size of US$30 billion (209.64 billion yuan) in 2022. Despite the late start of the Chinese market, the size of China's meal replacement market has already reached 57.17 billion yuan in 2017 and is expected to reach 120 billion yuan in 2022.
The “Tmall Food Industry Trend Analysis Report” (2016-2018) released by CBNData also shows that meal replacement products were trending nationwide. The overall sales of meal replacement products showed a steady increase of more than 50% and consumption in new first-tier and second-tier cities accounted for nearly 50%. Spectacularly, in 2018, the post-95s have replaced the post-90s as the main consumers of meal replacement products.
Bottled meal replacement milkshake undergoing explosive growth.
Currently, the meal replacement market is dominated by powders, milkshakes, and bars. At the same time, more meal replacement products are appearing to meet more diversified demands.
According to the "Insight Report on China's Online Meal Replacement Consumption Trends" released by CBNData and Tmall in 2019, bags are still the dominant packaging for meal replacements. Still, sales of bottled packaging have increased more than 50-fold in the past year. In particular, bottled milkshakes underwent explosive growth in 2018 due to their portability and balanced nutrition, with sales increasing more than 700 times.
CBNData shows that bottled meal replacement milkshakes, as an emerging meal replacement sector, are most well-received in first - and second-tier cities [1]. From July 2018 to June 2019, bottled milkshakes accounted for more than 3/4 of sales in the bottled meal replacement sector. The post-1990 generation is the main consumer group of bottled milkshakes, accounting for more than 1/4 of the total. In addition, female consumers contribute five times more than men.
Popular domestic brands are mostly newly-established.
China's bottled milkshake replacement market does not have a high brand concentration, and there are a large number of emerging online web celebrity brands, such as WonderLab (founded in 2019), Miss Zero (founded in 2017), Smeal (founded in 2019), ffit8 (founded in 2018), etc. These brands actively cooperate with KOLs and KOCs on Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and other social media platforms to increase brand visibility.
WonderLab is the most outstanding one among these new brands. It was just established in 2019 and had reached 60 million yuan in sales, becoming the top performer in terms of sales among new consumers of meal replacement brands. It was also rated as the most popular bottled meal replacement milkshake brand by Tmall in 2019 [2]. In March of this year, it collaborated with HEY TEA (China’s No.1 tea drink chain brand) to launch a co-branded milk tea flavored meal replacement milkshake gift box. Within 15 days of its launch on the Tmall flagship store, the product sold more than 100,000 pieces [3]. It was also recommended by Taobao top anchor Viya during her live-streaming, and 40,000 gift boxes were snapped up as soon as they were offered to consumers [4].
Multinational giants are also expanding into this business.
Due to the rapid growth of the meal replacement market in China and the increased consumer interest in meal replacement products, multinational giants have also begun to tap into this business.
Pepsi recently released a Quaker-branded meal replacement milkshake product, "Smart Calories." This is the first time Pepsi has launched a meal replacement product in the Chinese market. The new product also adopts the bottled packaging. It is available in four flavors of yellow peach & white peach, oat & quinoa, apple & red pomegranate, and strawberry & cranberry. It also added freeze-dried fruit and cereal grains to enrich the taste. At present, the product is sold through online e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and Jingdong. The price in its Tmall flagship store is 159 yuan for six bottles, which is similar to the price of WonderLab and other similar products on the market.
In April this year, Nestlé launched the new meal replacement brand NesQino (a combination of smoothie, oat shake, and milkshake). Before this new launch, the brand launched Build U bottled meal replacement powder in 2019 Q4. Nestlé currently sells a total of three meal replacement brands in China, namely OPTIFAST under Nestlé Health Sciences, NesQino, and Build U under Nestlé China.
A glimpse of major bottled meal replacement milkshakes online
| Brands/Products | Specification | Unit price (RMB) | Flavor |
| By-health LeanBar | 50g/bottle | 90/6 bottles | Caramel Strawberry Coconut |
| Smeal | 75g/bottle | 139/6 bottles | Black truffle chocolate Black sesame chia seeds Matcha milk powder Coffee skimmed milk Ceylon black tea milk powder Purple sweet potato coix seed |
| WondeLab | 75g/bottle | 149/6 bottles | Red bean and coix seed Walnut and black sesame Matcha and shelled rice Hazelnut black chocolate Coffee latte Earl milk tea |
| Miss Zero | 40g/bottle | 129/6 bottles | Black chocolate Red bean and coix seed Yellow peach yogurt |
| Lepur | 50g/bottle | 149/6 bottles | Mixed berries Coffee&cocoa Purple sweet potato and coconut Oat flaxseed Matcha and shelled rice Red bean and coix seed |
| QUAKER Smart Calories | 53g/bottle | 159/6 bottles | Oat and quinoa Yellow peach and white peach Strawberry and cranberry Apple and pomegranate |
| Nana | 50g/bottle | 99/6 bottles | Peach Matcha Sea salt almonds Berries Mango Black truffle cocoa |
| Dujiaoshou | 65g/bottle | 129/6 bottles | Matcha and shelled rice Hazelnut black chocolate Red bean and coix seed Coffee latte Sea salt cheese Sweet corn |
| ffit8 | 50g/bottle | 139/6 bottles | Latte Black sesame Avocado |
What can we learn from the success of bottled meal replacement products?
Generally, there are 3-6 kinds of flavors for each brand, and some competing brands have similar or overlapping flavors. For example, the flavors of matcha and red bean and coix seed are adopted by five and four brands respectively. As consumers’ demands diversify, there is much room for flavor innovation.
The designed bottled packaging is an appealing point for young people who like to share on social media platforms. Product packaging aesthetics is an important consideration.
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