拓宽品类边界！让常温奶鲜甜好喝 伊利如何破解行业难题？

This article focuses on Yili's new shelf-stable cow milk product, "Chun Hao He" (Great Tasting Pure Milk), analyzing emerging trends in China's milk consumption market and the product's core strengths. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Consumer demand for milk has shifted from prioritizing basic nutrition to drinking experience. According to Feigua Data, 45.1% of consumers rank taste as their top criterion when purchasing liquid milk, and great taste is now the core driver of word-of-mouth and repeat purchases. Milk consumption has also expanded to cover multiple all-day scenarios, leading to rising consumer expectations for flavor.

2. Yili's new product addresses long-standing flavor pain points of traditional shelf-stable milk. It uses a dual technology process combining INF 0.09-second ultra-high temperature instantaneous sterilization and oxygen-reduction freshness locking, which preserves more of raw milk's natural aroma than conventional UHT processing, eliminates cooked off-flavor and raw milk aftertaste, and delivers a genuinely fresh, sweet taste.

3. The product name directly highlights its core selling point, lowering consumer decision-making cost. It comes in a 950mL resealable PET bottle, with a size suited for family sharing, mixology, baking and other scenarios, delivering a better daily user experience.

This article outlines new consumption trends in the dairy sector, and directions for product upgrading and brand competition for dairy brands. Key insights are as follows:

1. Shifting consumer trends: Consumer demand for basic nutrition is already saturated, and purchases are now driven by experience rather than nutrition. Taste has become the core factor influencing consumer buying decisions. Milk consumption has expanded into a diverse, all-day beverage category, growing total consumption volume and raising expectations for flavor experience.

2. R&D direction: Plain shelf-stable milk, the largest category in the dairy sector, has clear supply-side pain points: most products have prominent raw aftertaste and lack fresh flavor, and the industry suffers from severe homogenization. Few brands have centered their positioning on great taste, leaving a clear gap in the market.

3. Brand building direction: Brands can learn from Yili's approach of restructuring product value around core experience: embed core value into product naming to reduce consumer decision cost, and design packaging for multi-scenario use. The competition logic has shifted from comparing nutrition metrics to competing on perceptible drinking experience.

This article summarizes market shifts and untapped growth opportunities for dairy product sellers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Changing market demand: Competition in the shelf-stable milk market has shifted from competing on nutrition metrics to competing on sensory experience. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for better-tasting milk, and great taste has become a new growth track for the industry. The article notes that great taste will drive more industry growth going forward than marginal increases of less than 1 gram of protein content.

2. Clear market opportunities: Supply of plain shelf-stable milk centered on the "great taste" positioning is severely inadequate. The industry is dominated by homogenized competition, and consumer demand for better taste remains unmet. Meanwhile, the expansion of milk consumption scenarios has grown family consumption volume and increased demand for multi-scenario usability, leaving significant room for growth in this track.

3. Actionable insights: Yili's end-to-end approach of aligning process R&D, product naming and packaging design around the core consumer demand of great taste is a valuable reference. Sellers can enter the under-supplied great-tasting shelf-stable milk track, and capture more growth by selecting products aligned with scenario-based demand.

This article outlines directions for production upgrading and new business opportunities for dairy manufacturing plants. Key insights are as follows:

1. Shifting product and design requirements: Consumers are no longer satisfied with only meeting basic nutrition requirements; they now prioritize actual taste experience and scenario compatibility. They want shelf-stable milk to retain its advantages of long shelf life and easy storage while delivering fresh milk-level sweet flavor, and require packaging that is multi-scenario compatible, resealable, and sized for family sharing and mixology/baking use.

2. New business opportunities: In the plain shelf-stable milk track, supply of great-tasting products is severely insufficient, and the industry overall suffers from homogenized competition. Plants that upgrade their production processes early and develop products aligned with consumer taste demand can抢占 first-mover position in the new track, win more orders and gain greater market share.

3. Insights for production upgrading: Plants need to prioritize process R&D and upgrading, use technological innovation to solve the flavor pain points of traditional shelf-stable milk, and embed real consumer demand into production processes and product design. Only this can they develop market-competitive products and keep up with industry upgrading.

This article outlines industry trends and shifting client demand for service providers serving the dairy sector. Key insights are as follows:

1. Industry development trends: The shelf-stable milk industry has entered a new stage of value upgrading, and the entire industry's competition logic is changing. It has gradually shifted from competing on milk sources and nutrition metrics to competing on directly perceptible drinking experience. Great taste has become the new core competitive track, and the entire industry is upgrading products around consumer experience.

2. Core client pain points: The top demand from dairy companies is solving the long-standing flavor problem of shelf-stable milk. Traditional high-temperature sterilization processes create cooked off-flavor and raw milk aftertaste, which cannot meet consumer demand for fresh sweet flavor. Dairy companies also need multi-scenario compatible packaging solutions to help their products reach consumers and build differentiated positioning.

3. Directions for business growth: Service providers can develop targeted solutions around process upgrading and packaging innovation, to help dairy companies achieve technological breakthroughs and solve flavor pain points. They can also develop multi-scenario compatible packaging solutions to match the current industry upgrading demand and tap new business growth points.

This article summarizes market shifts for dairy-focused e-commerce and retail platforms, with actionable insights for merchant recruitment and operations management. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Category growth opportunities: Consumer demand for great-tasting shelf-stable milk is strong, but market supply is severely insufficient, leaving significant growth potential in this track. Platforms can list this category as a key recruitment priority, introduce differentiated products that meet consumer demand, enrich platform category structure, and capture new growth dividends.

2. Operations optimization direction: Platforms can adjust product recommendation algorithms to align with the trend of diversified milk consumption scenarios, create curated recommendation collections for different use cases including tea and coffee mixing, family breakfast, and DIY baking, to accurately reach consumers with different needs and boost product conversion rates.

3. Product selection risk mitigation: The shelf-stable milk track currently suffers from severe homogenization, with most brands competing on nutrition metrics. Platforms should avoid over-competed homogeneous products when selecting offerings, and prioritize products with differentiated experience that match new consumer demand, to reduce product selection and operational risk.

This article presents the latest developments in the shelf-stable milk industry for dairy industry researchers, and outlines new research directions. Key insights are as follows:

1. Latest industry developments: The shelf-stable milk industry has completed the popularization of basic nutritional value, and has officially entered a new stage of experience value upgrading. The industry's competition logic has fundamentally changed, shifting from competing on milk sources and nutrition metrics to competing on consumers' directly perceptible sensory and usage experience. Great taste has become the core standard for dividing the new industry track.

2. New problems to solve for the industry: The industry currently faces clear supply-demand mismatch. Consumer demand for better taste has already emerged, but the industry as a whole has not made great taste a core strategic priority. Severe homogenized competition and outdated existing products fail to meet new consumer demand, leaving pressing category pain points to be addressed.

3. Implications for research directions: The growth logic of China's dairy industry has changed: it has shifted from getting consumers to drink milk, to getting consumers to enjoy drinking milk. Experience upgrading has become the core driver of the next round of industry growth, and product innovation centered on real consumer demand will become the core of industry competition. This direction merits in-depth research.