On the cusp of a Healthy Drink Boom in Vietnam

베트남에서 건강 음료 붐이 일고 있다

1512월2020

B&Company

Rising Trend of Healthy Drinks among Vietnamese Consumers

Health has been the top concern for Vietnamese consumers based on research by Nielsen from Q3-2019 to Q1-2020. As to lead a healthy lifestyle, it seems that many consumers are interested in healthy drinks. When searching for the keyword “healthy drinks” or “healthy juice recipe” on Facebook, Vietnam’s most popular social media channel, the results display a lot of fan pages, groups, and posts with many engagements. Take a fanpage called “Juicing, Healthy Drinks and Yoga Lovers” as an example, this fanpage attracts more than 37.1 thousand members and has a high posting frequency with about 100 interactions per post. Another group called “1001 Công Thức Nước Ép” (1001 Juice Recipe) has 55.2 thousand members and engagement per post is above 100.

A recent research of more than 600,000 discussions about “Living Healthy Trends” in the third quarter of 2019 by YouNet Media has drawn some trends among social media users, in which, they thought that there is a positive correlation between healthy drinks and the trends “to become more beautiful”. Besides “doing exercise” being one of the most popular trends naturally with more than 150,000 discussions on social networks, “eat clean” is also considered a great contribution to health and physical attractiveness as well. Particularly, in terms of healthy drinks, smoothies (8,490 discussions) and celery juice (5,688 discussions) are popular. These drinks are believed to help reduce belly fat and detox the body.

Following the increasing interest and demand for healthy drinks, on the suppliers’ side, we can also see a noticeably increase in the variety of choices for juices, smoothies, and plant-based “milk”, which are often considered to bring health benefit. Looking at the online delivery alone, when searching with keyword “Healthy Drinks” on top food delivery apps, the results show a great number of stores for this kind of drink. On Grab Food apps, there are more than 100 stores around District 1 alone that are selling healthy drinks such as smoothies, juices, and detox water within 6 kilometers radius. Some shops divide drinks into different types: Antioxidant Drinks, Detox Water, Nutrition Drinks, and Juices. Detox water and juices are among the top chosen by many consumers. Another food delivery app is Now, once entering the keyword “best seller” in the search bar, a healthy drink shop has ranked one of 7 best-selling stores. This shop sells various kinds of products mainly detox water, juices, and smoothies. A search on Google Map with the keyword “healthy drinks” shows that in the center of District 1, there are 12 healthy drinks stores within 2 kilometers radius. Types of business are usually stores combined with takeaway service.

A Closer Look on Consumers’ perception and behavior

According to the result of a recent survey by B&Company on the online BEAN Survey platform with 300 respondents in Vietnam aged above 18, consumers’ understanding of the “healthy drinks” concept often relates to natural-based ingredients such as fruits, vegetables, and nuts. They tend to assume Juices (Fruits & Vegetables) as the most popular “Healthy Drinks” (78% of respondents). Besides, 66% of respondents agreed that milk is also considered a drink that may benefit their health in several ways. On the other hand, nut-based drinks (62% respondents) have also been increasingly popular with perceived health benefits such as reducing the rate of heart disease and being high in vitamin D. Interestingly, milk tea, one of the most popular drinks in Vietnam also happens to be in the least healthy group in consumers’ perception with other alcohol-based drinks (cocktails and beer).

Source: B&Company’s survey on online BEAN Survey Platform

Result from the same research also reveals that the vast majority of healthy drink users in Vietnam are willing to spend about VND 30,000 – 60,000 per order on both juices and nut-based drinks. More consumers are willing to pay a higher price for nut-based drinks compared to juices with the percentage of respondents who are willing to pay more than VND 60,000 per order are 37% and 22%, respectively. Three main reasons to choose healthy drinks like juices and plant-based drinks are vitamin and mineral supplement, beauty benefit, and immune boost.

Source: B&Company’s survey on online BEAN Survey Platform

The Movement of Traditional Key Players

As many Vietnamese consumers have recently moved from pasteurized or sterilized milk to plant-based milk such as dark sesame milk, beans, walnuts, and rice milk, some top dairy companies have announced increased import of related raw materials to meet this new market demand. TH Group, one of Vietnam’s largest milk producers, is riding these waves to market various supplementary plant-based drinks. In 2018, the domestic plant-based milk market accounted for 12% of the liquid milk market structure, with a CAGR of 18%, the highest among liquid milk lines (VIRAC). A report by Nielsen also showed that total sales of soymilk increased by 13% in the first 10 months in 2019.

Source: VIRAC

The competition is not only between dairy brands but also for bottled brands. Ms. Tran Uyen Phuong, Deputy General Director of Tan Hiep Phat Company – a market leader in bottled tea in Vietnam, confirmed this development in healthy drinks from the perspective of beverage manufacturers. She said that the two good-for-health products of Tan Hiep Phat, Zero Degree Green Tea, and Dr. Thanh Tea, continued to do well recently. Phuong clarified that the rise in bottled tea purchases may come from the attention of customers to traditional herbal medicine that boosts the immune system and helps prevent diseases. For eg, she said, Dr. Thanh Tea, a herbal drink containing more than 10 different herbal ingredients has attracted more customer attention.

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