Small bottles of drinks, small bags of rice, mini ice cream... A "mini wind" driven by young consumers has also blown into the field of condiments, and more and more small packaged condiments have appeared on the market.

Under the new consumption economy of "one person eating", what are the considerations on the size of condiment packaging to embrace the new era? How will condiment small packaging develop to cater to consumption scenes and people?

01

Why does the packaging of condiment products become smaller?

According to the statistics of the Ministry of civil affairs, China's single adult population reached 240 million in 2018, of which 77 million lived alone. It is also estimated that by 2021, the number of people living alone will rise to 92 million.

From the perspective of consumers, the popularity of packaging depends on the consumption power of the growing number of young single people. Under the background that the "post-90s" and "post-00s" have gradually become the main consumers in the market, in fact, this kind of small packaged condiment products have made packaging innovation to cater to this part of consumer groups.

From the perspective of condiment field, low cooking frequency, high requirements for convenience and less use of single package products are the significant characteristics of young single people. Personalized, healthy and idealized products are more favored by these groups, and young single consumer groups also drive the lifestyles of "eating alone", "lonely economy", "self Hi" and so on. With the prevalence and driving of this kind of consumption mode, some condiment small packaging products gradually stand out. Therefore, small packaging products are the products after the change of consumption trend.

In terms of consumption structure, according to the data of the National Bureau of statistics, the average number of domestic households decreased from 3.44 in 2000 to 2.62 in 2020, showing the development trend of family miniaturization. With the miniaturization of family structure, family cooking will become more and more uneconomic, resulting in more convenient demand. This change in consumption structure is also conducive to the development of small packaging products.

Take chafing dish seasoning as an example, the proportion of chafing dish seasoning with small packaging is increasing, which reflects the change of consumption structure. If people don't use 1-2-end hot pot, they will waste a lot of fresh hot pot after they use it. If they don't use it, they will waste a lot of hot pot ingredients.

From the perspective of use scenarios, small packaged condiments are not only used for family cooking, but also used for consumption in travel, takeout and other scenarios, especially in takeout channels. Categories such as chili powder, chili sauce, mustard, vinegar and so on are used more frequently at the takeout end.

For consumers who sell products in small packages, it is more convenient to use, add as much as they want, and the sealed packaging is fresher and healthier; For takeout businesses, they do not need to separately pack seasonings, which saves time and effort, solves problems such as leakage, and improves customer satisfaction; From the perspective of condiment enterprises, the gross profit of small package products in the takeout channel is higher, and the sales volume of catering end is also larger, which not only limits the small package products to the C-end users.

For example, Hubang chili sauce launched 15g, 30g and other small package chili sauce for takeout platform merchants, which on the one hand matched the scene needs of consumers, "give up after eating"; On the other hand, chili sauce forms a deep binding relationship with dishes. Its single package price is 3-5 yuan, with high gross profit and high sales volume. With the growth of the market scale of takeout industry, Hubang has become the No. 1 chili sauce of "online popularity" with the layout of 100000 terminal networks.

In contrast, according to the seasoner, there are very few small packaging condiment products for travel. Take Fanye as an example. The small cans of chili sauce launched by Fanye are intended to be eaten by one person, eaten at one time after opening the cover, or used for travel, but in the end, on the one hand, it is not necessary to use when traveling, so it will hardly be carried; On the other hand, the price is too expensive and replaced by catering consumption, which is also its disadvantage in the consumption scenario.

In terms of the convenience of use, in the "one person eating" scenario, a large bag of condiments can't be eaten by one person, and the rest is wasted, which is not easy to store and not fresh. However, a small bag of products is just right after eating a bag, and you can reopen a bag of food next time, which is not wasted and is a fresh use experience every time.

02

How do small packages of condiments play new tricks?

Nowadays, there are more and more condiment products with smaller specifications in the market, including traditional condiments and composite condiments. Compared with the cost performance of large and small packages, different products have different situations.

For example, the super thin salt head brewing soy sauce has a net content of 115 ml and sells for 5.8 yuan a bottle. Similarly, the price of 500 ml large bottle of soy sauce is 15.9 yuan. If calculated according to the price of large bottle, 115 ml soy sauce is about 3.7 yuan. Therefore, for consumers, depending on the unit price and content, the special grade thin salt head brewing soy sauce with small package has lower cost performance.

Is it true that small packaged products will bring high gross profit to enterprises? It's not.

On the one hand, for the same product of different sizes and specifications, if the customer unit price and net content are calculated alone, not all small packaged products will have a much higher price per gram (or per ml). According to the observation of seasoner, the retail price of 70g Wujiang pickled mustard is 2.5 yuan / bag, and the retail price of 22G is 0.8 yuan / bag. By comparison, the price of each gram is almost the same.

On the other hand, small packaging itself will increase the cost, but we can't look at it in a narrow sense. Small packaging products will add more costs to enterprises in terms of packaging, labor and equipment. For example, changing 70g pickled mustard to 15g small packaging. First, the original equipment producing 70g can not do 15g packaging. For powerful enterprises, the introduction of equipment also requires great investment. For small enterprises, relying on manual bagging also increases a lot of labor costs.

Therefore, whether the products with small packaging can obtain more profits should be comprehensively considered from the aspects of product pricing, cost and sales volume. How to rely on small packaging products, enterprises need to do in-depth consideration in these aspects.

In addition, according to the observation of seasoner, looking at all condiments in small packages, composite condiments in small packages have a greater chance of innovation and breakthrough than traditional condiments. Just as compound condiments cater to the needs of young consumer groups, compared with traditional condiments in small packages, compound condiments in small packages are also loved by young groups.

Therefore, small packages of traditional condiments such as soy sauce and vinegar are mostly produced by the layout of children's condiments. Ordinary small package products are also sold by packaging and gift. Under the "lazy house economy", composite condiments are used more frequently in young consumer groups.

Mini condiments are widely used in sales and have broad market prospects, but after all, they are "niche" products, which also test the profitability of enterprises. In the Internet economy, traffic seems to be more important. Travel alienation should be done in terms of taste and packaging, so as to create a popular online Red single, so as to firmly grasp this consumer group.