What are the NFC Juice development opportunities and future trends in China 2023?

In recent years, the fruit juice category has been developed at a high speed, and NFC juice, as a synonym of health and nutrition, is loved by consumers.In 2023, driven by consumers’ health concepts and the restoration of offline consumption scenarios, NFC juice has entered a period of rapid development. Recently, the industry report “2023 China NFC Juice Consumption Insight” was released, analyzing the business opportunities and chances of NFC juice market. The author selected part of the content for the benefit of readers.
Potluck/party is the primary consumption scenario
Similar to the trend of diversification of consumer demands, the consumption scenarios of NFC juice have been broadening, empowering the growth of the category. More than 60% of consumers will drink NFC juice at friends and family gatherings; at the same time, NFC juice also serves as a “regulator” of life and work, and high-frequency consumption scenarios include afternoon tea, work breaks, and camping trips.
Related to the stage of life, lifestyle and consumption concepts, women and young consumers aged 18-30 are driving the innovation of category application scenarios. Women more frequently use NFC juice as an ingredient for DIY food, while the consumption demand of consumers aged 18-30 is significantly stronger than that of other groups in the scenarios of couples dating and fat-reducing meal replacement.

Large supermarkets and convenience store chains lead the consumption channels
Related to the instantaneous characteristics of juice consumption, channel recovery after the epidemic, etc., the dependence of consumers on offline retail terminals is obvious, and about 80% of consumers buy NFC juice through large supermarkets and convenience store chains; with the development of instant delivery, e-commerce logistics, etc., supermarkets O2O and comprehensive e-commerce platforms are the online channels chosen by more than 70% of consumers.
As NFC juice has higher requirements for cold chain system, the difference in cold chain transportation, storage and other infrastructure construction in different city levels affects the choice of consumer channels. Compared with high tier cities, consumers in low tier cities are relatively more dependent on comprehensive e-commerce platforms (80.5%).

Natural health, good quality and easy drinking drive repurchase
Consumers’ willingness to repurchase NFC juice products is high, and the quality of NFC juice is recognized by consumers. From the research data, consumers’ high repurchase willingness (9-10 points) accounted for 61.9%, and low repurchase willingness (0-5 points) accounted for only 2% of the choices, showing strong consumer stickiness.
NFC juice is natural and non-additive (59.9%), good freshness and quality (58.5%), and saves fruit juicing time (55.1%) are the three major factors driving consumers to repurchase.

Consumers look forward to ingredient innovation and cooperation to create personalized drinks
According to the results of the survey, consumers’ expectations for the future of NFC juice are mainly focused on the product itself, enriching the way of combining juices and improving the price-performance ratio; secondly, consumers expect to be able to participate in the process of product creation and customize the juice products to suit their individual needs; lastly, consumers expect that the packaging of juices can be more transparent and the quality of the products can be guaranteed.
Specifically, female consumers, 18-30 year olds, couples and married people without children have higher expectations of product packaging design; low-tier cities, low- and middle-income people are more important to clearly understand the juice brand, trace the roots.

NFC juice presents five major development trends
In the face of consumer demand and juice market development characteristics, NFC juice future presents five major development trends.

Supply and demand both ends of the two-wheel drive, NFC juice market space is broad in the demand side, NFC juice consumer demand release, the consumer crowd continues to expand, the cultivation of consumption habits precipitation, for the future development of the category to lay a good foundation for the demand; and in the supply side, the brand “product power + marketing power + channel power” three forces, continue to seize consumers’ minds, enhance the consumption of conversion. In the supply side, the brand “product power + marketing power + channel power” three forces together, continue to seize the consumer’s mind, enhance consumption conversion. The synergistic development of future demand and supply will jointly drive the NFC juice market to maintain a faster growth rate.
Juice consumption concept upgrades, demand presents detailed, personalized, emotional trend in the consumer demand side, its demand for NFC juice continues to extend outward, to the depth of the development, the overall presentation of the “health needs of the upgrade”, “the emergence of personalized demand”, “NFC juice to meet the needs of consumers yearning for novelty taste and texture, but also a powerful carrier to highlight personal taste. Juice products are diversified and differentiated, and shelf life has become the focus of product iteration and optimization.
With more players entering the market to accelerate market competition, consumer demand is increasingly segmented and diverse, consumption scenes continue to enrich and innovate, the future around the segmented population, segmented scenes of the NFC juice new products will continue to emerge; the industry product pyramid will be gradually formed, product quality / freshness of the product by the technology-driven to further enhance the market penetration in the category at the same time, will continue to optimize the actual experience of consumers. Among them, pomegranate, small lime, grapefruit and other non-traditional niche, mixed innovative flavors rise, anchoring different consumer groups; below 500ml to meet the demand for ready-to-drink, more than 1L of large specifications to match the catering, family scenes, different holidays, but also to create different products; will be 300ml small-size products to maintain the price band of 5-10 yuan, to become a diversionary product, and at the same time to develop the medium- and high-end products; through the force of the Product packaging, sterilization process and other technologies to extend the shelf life. Players compete to enter the game, differentiated services to enhance consumer experience
With the improvement of people’s living standards, consumers have higher and higher requirements for the quality of fruit juice products, and the growth rate of low-concentration juice, which occupies a large share of the market, has slowed down. NFC juice, due to its fresh and healthy product attributes and the concept of category that matches the public’s health consumption, has a significant growth rate in the market, which has attracted a lot of players to enter the market, and many of them are vying for the stakes. In the increasingly fierce competition in the NFC juice industry, the players in order to realize the rapid development of the brand, have based on their own advantages, resources, to provide differentiated services, shaping the product selling points, to attract consumers, and enhance the consumer’s drinking / use experience. For example, they advocate high-quality fruit origin to provide high-quality juice; they advocate scarce fruits to provide novel citation experience; they advocate novel and interesting packaging to provide high-value products. The channel presents online trend, Tetong injects new vitality for the development of the industry.
At present, the sales channel of NFC juice in China is still mainly offline, but with the improvement of the cold chain logistics capacity of online platforms, the weakening of the randomness of category consumption, and the development of online consumption habits, online platforms will become an important retail channel for NFC juice. The special pass channel with high matching degree with the target population and strong cooperation and synergy complements the advantages of the traditional sales channel, and jointly drives the continuous development of the NFC juice industry. For example, Zero Degree Fruit Place has joined hands with Mr. Box Horse to actively promote channel expansion; Fulan Farm has become the designated juice for Hainan Airlines cabin to promote the development of the industry.