Why is ice cream so expensive this summer?
"Don't take ice cream you don't know, it will become unfortunate." Recently, this topic has spread more and more widely on the Internet.
Consumers in many places said that it is difficult to buy cheap ice cream below 3 yuan.
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily visited the market and found that ice cream, which costs more than ten yuan a piece, is increasingly occupying the freezers of roadside shops.
Following the heated discussion of Zhong Xuegao's "high-priced ice cream" last year, with the launch of Moutai ice cream this summer, the ice cream market is experiencing a strange circle of "not the most expensive, only more expensive".
Convenience store "new rich" get together
It's hard to find ice cream below 3 yuan in small shops
On June 7, a topic of "Ice cream should be sold like this" appeared on Weibo's hot search.
In the video, the freezers selling ice cream are covered with pictures of various ice creams and their corresponding prices.
Some netizens posted pictures of ice cream freezers near their homes under the corresponding topic.
The reporter of Beijing Youth Daily noticed that in these pictures with the price of ice cream, it is almost difficult to see ice cream of 1 yuan. Products below 3 yuan have become the "minority" in the freezer. The unit price of some of the most expensive cold drinks in the freezer is close to 40 yuan. But products priced in the single digits are less than half.
In a picture, among the 14 ice creams, only 4 are priced below 10 yuan, and the cheapest is 5 yuan.
This is not a case. The Beijing Youth Daily reporter visited many convenience stores such as Beijing 7-11, Lawson, and Family Mart. Most of the products in the freezer selling ice cream and ice cream are Internet celebrity models, and most of the brands and products are relatively rare.
In terms of price, among the ice creams sold by 7-11, the cheapest is the original Madiel popsicle at 5 yuan, and the most expensive is the 1946 Pure Sense Liu Xin Qiao Qiao in Zhongjie, which is priced at 20 yuan for a single stick.
Not only convenience stores, but also ice cream or ice cream in some street shops or private small supermarkets are also difficult to find products with a unit price of less than 3 yuan.
Some ice creams such as chocolate, bitter coffee, green mood, ice+, ice factory, double stick, snowman, old popsicle, and small pudding, which are often eaten by children born in the 80s and 90s, are either rising in price or hard to find.
Instead, Zhong Xuegao, Li Daju and a group of cold drink upstarts who can't remember the brand.
Not long ago, "How outrageous the price of contemporary ice cream" has been a hot topic.
The cause of the incident was that a netizen posted a video on Douyin: He bought two ice creams at a street store and found that it cost 37.5 yuan at checkout.
Later, the netizen made an excuse to exchange two ice creams, but it cost 45 yuan when checking out again.
In this regard, netizens concluded a new rule for buying ice cream: "Don't take it if you don't know it! Otherwise, it will become unfortunate."
On the one hand, the cost of raw materials has risen
More profit due to high price ice cream
Ice cream in convenience stores has always been cheap, so why are ice cream in street shops getting more and more expensive?
"It's not that we don't want to sell it. The store is such a big place. If you put one in the freezer, you have to lose the other." The root can have a gross profit of 3 yuan to 5 yuan. The price of a cheap ice cream is often less than the gross profit of an expensive ice cream. It is clear at a glance who the store chooses.
The bosses of some small supermarkets even told reporters that the sales of some cheap ice cream are not as big as imagined, and it is difficult to take the road of small profits but quick turnover.
"Nowadays, many people buy ice cream for freshness. Although ice cream below 3 yuan sells a lot, the sales volume is far less than the first two years." The price of the goods or the model that the dealer wants to sell.
Not only that, some cold drink distributors said that the price of some classic products of some brands has increased significantly in the past one or two years, making the cheap ice cream below 3 yuan less and less.
For example, the retail price of Green Mood has risen from 2 yuan to 3.5 yuan, Choledz has risen to 4.5 yuan, bitter coffee has risen to 3.5 yuan, ice + some flavors have been sold for 5 yuan, and Northeast Daban original flavor has been sold for 4 yuan, etc. The main reason is that the raw materials continue to caused by the rise.
According to statistics, from 2008 to 2020, the cost of raw materials such as milk and whipped cream required for ice cream production has risen by about 80%.
Not only that, some manufacturers said that in recent years, some brands have pursued "upgrades of raw materials", such as pure milk, etc., which has also pushed up costs.
Various IP attributes "bless"
Consumers pay for high premiums
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily noticed that the decreasing number of cheap ice cream has something to do with the rising cost, but more ice cream and ice cream brands are busy pushing into new tracks and pursuing new products with high added value.
From the fact that Maotai entered the ice cream market, we can see why the industry is willing to fall into the vicious circle of more and more expensive new products.
According to the iMoutai official account, more than 40,000 of Moutai's three ice creams were sold out in 51 minutes, with a sales amount exceeding 2.5 million.
The offline flagship store has a long queue of people who bought it. The sales volume exceeded 200,000 within 7 hours of the sale, and a total of more than 5,000 Moutai ice creams were sold.
Is it so popular because of its high quality and low price?
No, the current price of Moutai ice cream can be said to be the leader in ice cream. The price per gram beats Haagen-Dazs and beats Zhong Xuegao, who was controversial last year for "high-priced ice cream".
So, is there a reason it's expensive?
According to the introduction of i Moutai's official APP, the two ice creams priced at 66 yuan both add 2% of 53-degree Kweichow Moutai.
A single cup of ice cream 75 grams contains 1.5 grams of Kweichow Moutai.
The suggested retail price of 53 degrees 500ml Feitian Moutai is 1,499 yuan. Based on this calculation, this part is about 4.497 yuan.
Moutai Ice Cream's partner, Mengniu's most expensive ice cream, Tilan Shengxue, the official flagship store price of the smallest size cup (90 grams) is 20 yuan.
According to the superposition of the above retail prices, even if Moutai ice cream sells for 25 yuan, there is still a profit margin that can satisfy the products of both parties.
In addition, online purchases require additional courier or delivery fees that are higher than the current market average, and its profit margins can be imagined.
Similar to Moutai ice cream, there are also IP cultural and creative ice cream that emerge in endlessly everywhere.
Although most of these ice creams are made by domestic ice cream manufacturers, just because of the different shapes, the price of one piece is several times higher than that of the brothers' products in the same factory.
"A Menglong is 12 yuan, and a cultural and creative ice cream is 25 yuan. So I decided to choose Menglong." In a park in Beijing with a ticket of 10 yuan, a consumer said this.
This is not the ceiling of the price of cultural and creative ice cream. At present, the most expensive cultural and creative ice cream in Beijing sells for about 40 yuan.
It is reported that the cost of producing a high-quality milk ice cream, including the cold chain, is about 7 to 8 yuan.
They are expensive and highly profitable, and they are so popular. In addition to the added value of IP such as Maotai, it is because of the "scarcity" of such products that can only be purchased at designated locations and the curiosity of consumers.
This rare consumption experience has become a consumption habit of young consumers nowadays.
Some consumers are even more willing to pay for the high premium of such products in order to "keep up with the trend" and "not fall behind", and even for a "like" on social media.
Expert reminder
High-priced new products have a shorter life cycle and are more likely to be abandoned by the market
Let the ice cream industry blow up the Internet celebrity, relying on the marketing methods of enterprises.
Last year, Zhong Xuegao, who made his cake ice products a new hot item and attracted scalpers through pre-sale, limited edition, package sales, etc., not only experienced doubts such as "high price" and "false propaganda", but was picked out of his brand early. During the years, the products were distributed to Xiaohongshu experts for free trial, and they were invited to write reviews on the platform, and tens of thousands of notes instantly dominated Xiaohongshu.
It is because of the success of brands with internet celebrity genes such as Zhong Xuegao that many ice cream brands have discovered a new attribute of their products - social networking.
When consumers eat ice cream no longer for the sake of the heat, the ice cream industry also followed the new tea industry and stepped into the category of snack food.
Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said that the new generation of consumer groups are more sensitive to emotions and brand tonality, and this group of people promotes the transformation of ice cream attributes, which also brings huge room for growth to the market.
However, this segment of consumers tends to be quicker and have more choices.
If ice cream and ice cream companies only want to make gimmicks, it is difficult to catch them. Therefore, the life cycle of high-priced new products in the ice cream industry is shorter and more likely to be abandoned by the market.