Instant coffee finally has a new twist: Nestle coffee launches new fruit-flavored product

Reporter | Liu Yujing

Nestlé's instant coffee product line recently added a new summer product: a fruit extract series of instant coffee with fruit and coffee, available in three flavors: peach, coconut pineapple and green apple.

This instant coffee breaks some of the characteristics of traditional instant coffee, such as having to be brewed with hot water and the flavors mostly revolving around milk. The new fruit extract series of instant coffee can be brewed directly with cold water; the green apple flavor can be brewed directly with ice water or sparkling water, while the peach flavor can be brewed with a small amount of hot water and then added to ice.

This is also Nestlé's localized innovation in the Chinese market, and its co-developer is Tmall Innovation Center. The target customer group of this product is relatively young - according to the preliminary market research data released by Nestlé, the annual sales volume of multi-flavor coffee products on e-commerce platforms increased rapidly in 2018, with an increase of nearly 70%, and young Chinese consumers are most interested in trying new and unique flavors.

Earlier, Ge Wen, senior vice president of coffee business of Nestlé Greater China, also told Jiemian News that the special fruit extract series products are mainly aimed at young consumers who like fresh tastes. Pour sparkling water or brew with hot water and add ice to it, the taste will be richer. This series of products is mainly launched in summer, and Nestlé will follow up with this series again in winter.

Instant coffee has always been an important product line for Nestlé in the Chinese market, and this category is also facing innovation. In fact, the growth of China's instant coffee market has not slowed down. In fact, all coffee categories in the Chinese market are growing, including instant coffee.

At the recent FBIF 2019 Food and Beverage Innovation Forum, Nestlé Greater China Chief Marketing Officer Jiang Nini also mentioned that the company's problem in the past two years was that "product updates were too slow and could not keep up with the needs of Chinese consumers." This year, Nestlé plans to launch 170 new products and shorten the process from concept to market - the goal is six to eight months. This fruit extract series of coffee is one of the results of its new product innovation strategy.

The trend of mixing fruit water with coffee was quite popular in the coffee restaurant chain channels earlier, and this has also been a new product development trend in the coffee restaurant industry in recent years.

This year, Starbucks launched 8 new "Fun Ice" products in China, many of which are combinations of fruit flavors, sparkling water, and cold brew coffee. For example, the Sour Lemon Float Cold Brew is cold brew coffee with lemon juice and maple syrup whiskey flavors; the Iceberg Americano has espresso, soda, and lemon, which tastes very summery. Costa Coffee also recently launched this year's new products - Pineapple Sparkling Cold Brew Iced Coffee and Strawberry Daiquiri Cold Brew Iced Coffee, which are also combinations of fruit and iced coffee.

At the end of last year, Nestlé launched ready-to-drink cold brew coffee in the Chinese market, which was different from non-cold brew coffee at around 5 yuan, targeting high-end consumer groups and priced at around 14 yuan. The new fruit extract series of instant coffee is priced at 20 yuan per box, and each instant coffee (15 grams) is priced at 2.5 yuan on average, which can target more young and price-sensitive groups.