Trend tracker: Infant formula, beauty from within and probiotics feature in our trend line-up

14-Nov-2018 - Last updated on 14-Nov-2018 at 08:59 GMT

In our latest overview of market trends in APAC, China's online dairy sales have declined, while Australia's daigou sales for infant formula are soaring — much to the chagrin of local parents. Elsewhere, we look at new products in the beauty-from-within space, and the newest probiotics consumer developments.

Online sales of dairy products slows in China, growth mainly fuelled by infant milk powder and liquid milk

Online sales of dairy products on China's e-commerce platforms grew at a YoY rate of 45.2% in Q1 2018 — the lowest since Q1 2016, according to an analysis carried out by China research company Syntun.

The analysis broke down the market performance of liquid milk, infant formula powder, and adult milk powder sold on China's e-commerce platforms in Q1 2018.

Data was collected from a range of B2C e-commerce platforms, including JD, Suning, Tmall, Amazon, and yhd.com.

JD and Tmall remained the two most popular e-commerce sites for sales of dairy milk. Although most transactions took place on Tmall (49.5%), the sales revenue was higher for JD (51.2%).

Don't blame daigou, blame brands? Formula firms urged to explore new retail channels in Australia amid shortage complaints

Brands must share the responsibility for shortages of infant formula in some Australian stores, instead of heaping the blame on daigou shoppers, says Australia-China Daigou Association (ACDA) president Dr Mathew McDougall.

Daigou shoppers in Australia are once again in the spotlight, thanks to an open letter addressed to supermarket chain Woolworths from a father in Sydney.

The supermarket's decision to raise the per-customer infant formula limit from two to eight tins was criticised, and in response, it justified this with "improving supply in the market", adding that it would continue to "carefully monitor" stock availability and readjust the limit if necessary.

Amid the dissatisfaction from Australian parents being directed at daigou shoppers and local supermarket chains, McDougall said manufacturers, especially the a2 Milk Company, had a responsibility to find solutions.

Lycored's ingestible skin health solutions to drive further expansion into APAC

Israeli nutraceutical supplier Lycored is bringing its two decade-long research into 'beauty from within' to fruition with its ingestible skincare solutions, with which it intends to target the booming APAC market.

Golan Raz, head of the company's global health division, told NutraIngredients-Asia: "Lycored has been laying the foundation for ingestible skincare products for over 20 years, during which we've conducted extensive research that has contributed to understanding of the direct link between nutrition and skin wellness.

"While we started our journey two decades, it's only within the last few years that we've really embraced 'beauty from within' as a core element of our brand identity."

When marketing probiotics, do consumers care about delivery technology?

When marketing probiotics, delivery system technology is still mostly a B2B tool, according to data from Lumina Intelligence. But as consumers scrutinize efficacy more, it may become an important marketing tool.

"Using a delivery system and making consumers aware of that is one of the ways to demonstrate to consumers that a significant count of bacteria in the product is going to survive the manufacturing, the storage and finally, the passage through the digestive tract to reach the intestines alive," Ewa Hudson, head of market insights at Lumina Intelligence, told us.

Yet a majority of probiotic products screened by Lumina (79%) do not name a specific delivery system.