The market size of pet health products as the "fourth meal" for pets is gradually expanding.

Pet health care products have the dual attributes of medicines and consumer goods. Depending on certain technical barriers, they have gradually become an important segment in pet health consumption.

Beizhenbao is a cutting-edge brand in the field of pet health care. The parent company was established in Wuhan in July 2019. Although the development process has been greatly affected by the epidemic, with its strong product strength, it has established itself in the industry. A lot of achievements have been achieved.

Recently, "Mingming Company" had a conversation with Wen Bowei, founder and CEO of Beizhenbao, and discussed the current situation and competitive landscape of my country's pet nutritional and health care products track, as well as how brands can improve recognition and channel layout, etc. question.

< p>Wen Bowei has worked for a number of consumer goods and manufacturing listed companies. He has a combined background in investment banking and venture capital companies. He has a deep understanding of the consumer industry, company strategy and operational management. Beizhenbao focuses on cats and dogs, which are very common and For chronic diseases that are difficult to solve, use scientific research to explore cutting-edge technologies to bring powerful pet medical research and health products to domestic pets, and promote pet health care consumption to become more rational and professional.

In the first half of 2022, Beizhen will. Bao has completed two rounds of tens of millions of yuan in Pre-A and Pre-A+ rounds. The investors are Baojiehui Innovation Consumer Fund and the listed company Ruo Yuchen. The old shareholders Qingsong Fund and Shangcheng Investment will continue to invest. Investing heavily in R&D, building its own pet experimental base, upgrading existing products and expanding categories.

With the upcoming opening of the 25th Asian Pet Show, Bei Zhenbao officially announced its brand upgrade. After the upgrade, there are three major brands. The brand series - Vitalizing, Principle and Innovative respectively focus on functional pet snacks, powerful functional products and top-quality health care products with ultimate raw materials.

Wen Bowei hopes to double the future. Zhenbao can continue to enrich its product line and cooperate extensively with agents, pet stores and pet hospitals to promote highly effective products to more pet owners and help domestic pet health care develop in a more scientific, professional and precise direction.

The following is the conversation between "Minggliang Company" and Wen Bowei (abridged)

Q: Mingliang Company

A: Founder of Wenbowei Beizhenbao And CEO

Pet medical care will eventually occupy 50% of the pet market

Q: What is the track for pet nutritional and health care products?

A: In recent years, the importance of pet health care has greatly increased, and the demand for nutritional and health care products has become increasingly strong. It is a track with a rapid compound growth rate in the pet industry.

One difference between pets and humans (in terms of health management) is that prevention is better than cure. We will know where you are uncomfortable as soon as possible and solve small problems at a very low cost. However, pets cannot speak and cannot communicate with their owners when they feel uncomfortable. When the owner discovers that there is a health problem with the pet and sends it to the hospital, the best time for treatment has been missed, which is a serious situation.

Developed countries in Europe and the United States have verified this conclusion, especially the United States, which attaches great importance to preventive nutrition. After the owner brings the pet to the hospital, the doctor will customize a corresponding nutritional plan based on its physical condition to solve the corresponding problem. Functional foods, including prescription foods, are widely used in the United States. my country's pet market is currently divided into three parts: staple food, pet medical care and other products and services. It will eventually be similar to developed countries, with the proportion of the medical field gradually increasing, and finally reaching about 50%.

Also from a cycle perspective, the life span of pets is much shorter than that of humans, and a large amount of time in the entire life cycle belongs to a relatively fragile stage. They are young from birth to 10 months old, and gradually enter aging after 6 years old. These two ages are the stages where various chronic diseases of pets are concentrated, and corresponding nutritional and health products are needed to solve the problems. The problem of aging pets in our country is coming, but there are not many brands in the market to provide solutions for pets.

In addition, the level of pet diagnosis and treatment is uneven, and the veterinary reserve is insufficient to keep up with the explosive growth in the number of pets. When pets are sent to the hospital for illness, it is often difficult to get good treatment, unlike us humans who have a wide range of medical options to choose from. This also illustrates the importance of pet health care from a preventive perspective.

However, many domestic pet health care product brands currently adopt the OEM (OEM) and ODM (Official Design and Manufacturing) model of production. The production process cannot be strictly controlled, and quality problems are prone to occur, which also causes This has solved the misunderstanding among some users that “eight out of ten pet health products are IQ taxes”.

Q: How do you view the current competitive landscape? For example, how do domestic pet health care brands compete with international giant brands like Mars Pets?

A: Mars’ strength is pet staple food, which is different from pet nutrition and health care products. At present, the intensity of domestic health care products may seem intense to outsiders, but from the perspective of those in the industry, it is not as intense as the staple food industry. First, the threshold for health care products is higher than that of staple foods, which makes research and development difficult. Secondly, the penetration rate is not as high as that of staple food, and the cycle of building users’ minds is longer. To build a brand, you need to be able to endure loneliness, so not many people join the game.

Furthermore, staple food and nutritional health products are complementary and non-competitive coexistences. Some people think that staple food can be added with health functions to seize the market share of health products, such as cat food that can remove tear stains and bad breath. However, from the perspective of actual production and use, the production process of some grains does not guarantee the functional ingredients. Too sure, and long storage time after opening the bag can easily cause loss of efficacy. In addition, users’ usage habits of not changing food for a long time and their demands for different health care fields lead to the need to match different health products to solve health problems. In short, Staple food is a daily basic nutritional supplement and cannot fully cover users with various health care needs.

Whether it is a B-end store or a direct C-end pet owner, the choice of nutritional and health care products mainly focuses on several dimensions: the first is whether the product itself is effective and whether it can solve my problem; the second Second, is this product worthy of trust? Be wary of some brands adding chemicals and prohibited ingredients in it in order to pursue effects; third, the operational price is stable and unstable. For some brands, the entire price system is very unstable for the sake of online momentum. , which is a relatively large harm to brand trust.

There are not many brands that can achieve these three points, so in our view, the industry has not yet formed a sufficient competitive landscape. There is still a lot of room for development for Beizhenbao, and it does not regard staple foods as its own. competitors, but fully cooperate to jointly solve the health problems of pets.

The three major series have been newly upgraded, respectively targeting the "functional party" and the "raw material party"

Q: What are the competitive advantages of Bezhenbao?

A: Our greatest advantage is our emphasis on research and development and our pursuit of the ultimate product. Why was Bezhenbao established in Wuhan? One of the core reasons is the early in-depth cooperation with Huazhong Agricultural University, which is China's top institution for scientific research in the field of veterinary medicine and animal science. Based on scientific literature, both parties use cutting-edge international technologies and formulas to treat and improve common pet problems in a traceable manner.

As we developed later, we jointly established a laboratory with the Qingdao Center for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct collaborative research and development. In other words, the core formulas of Beizhenbao are all directly prepared by the company's laboratory, and then sent to the foundry for assembly. Each product will be tested for efficacy through controlled experiments.

Our shortest research and development time is one year. There are many things to verify in each path, but this also ensures that the product is real and effective. There is no second company in the entire industry that has achieved this. The strongest output for user cognition. This is why the unit price per customer is higher, and it can also gain the trust and reputation of users.

Take the dental problems of pets as an example. Most owners will not brush their pets’ teeth. Dogs are better, but cats are very resistant. If you don't brush your teeth for a long time, coupled with gastrointestinal reflux, there will be food residues in the dog's mouth, forming dental plaque and dental calculus. Our product is a compound combination of lysozyme and antimicrobial peptides, which can effectively relieve digestive tract and oral problems. After taking it for a week or two, the owner will feel that the taste of the dog's mouth has been significantly improved.

In addition to focusing on product research and development, we also put a lot of effort into service. The Pet Doctor customer service team will not only track and guide users' product usage, but also provide comprehensive consulting services such as disease consultation, maintenance and prevention, and post-diagnosis care, playing the role of pet doctors around users. Therefore, the unit price per customer, private domain conversion rate, and repurchase rate are all leading in the industry.

Q: What product lines are currently divided?

A: With the upcoming 25th Asian Pet Show, we will make an overall brand upgrade. After the upgrade, Beizhenbao has three major series, namely Vitalizng, Principle and Innovative.

The first is the Vitalizing series, which aims at young pet owners to create a core of easy pet care, grafting health care functions onto daily snacks, giving pet snacks a certain functionality, allowing pet owners to use them at a lower price , to solve some corresponding basic problems.

The second one is the Principle anti-healing series, which is a word we coined by ourselves. Just listen to the name and you will know the meaning. It includes leading products for oral cavity, tear stains, gastrointestinal and other products. Health care products can be divided into two categories, one is functional, which solves problems through efficacy, and the other two is ingredients, or raw materials, which reflect quality through raw materials. The anti-healing series is the first one.

This series will also debut a joint product at the Asia Pet Exhibition. The core raw material uses egg membrane peptides. This product was developed after nearly two years of experiments with experts. 3 to It can relieve dog joint pain in 5 days and achieve effective recovery in 14 days, all of which are supported by experimental data.

The third one is the newly launched Innovative butterfly series, which follows the party line and highlights raw materials such as fish oil, lactoferrin, and probiotics. Consumers are already aware of them, and the products are traceable through raw materials. , the display of specific numerical values, and strive to reach the ceiling of the industry.

Q: Will the next research and development focus be expanded to pet drugs?

A: I have no such plans in the near future. In fact, we have made a lot of technical reserves in medicine and have our own views on the pharmaceutical market. However, in my opinion, pet medicine is not suitable for startup companies. Many subdivided original drug markets are too small, and some are only tens of millions in size.

There are less than 200 types of compliant pet drugs registered by the Ministry of Agriculture, many of which are outdated, and various drugs for actual diagnosis and treatment are in short supply. Moreover, the input and output of new drug R&D are not directly proportional. Different from the logic of human medicine, it is difficult for pet drugs to be priced above 10,000 after paying huge R&D costs. Many pet owners have second thoughts when faced with high-priced medicines. Unlike when people get sick, they are willing to pay tens or millions of dollars for various special drugs and targeted drugs.

In addition, for the pet drugs currently sold on many e-commerce platforms, the e-commerce operating company actually cooperates with pharmaceutical manufacturers, obtains the corresponding qualifications, and then produces and sells them. These products do not have any features or technical content, and do not rely on product or channel capabilities. The core is still marketing. This kind of thing will only be popular in the short term, but has little long-term value.

Build users and build trust through multiple channels

Q: Some pet brands have the problem of low brand recognition and emphasis on online channels rather than offline channels. Are there any improvements to the layout?

A: In terms of brand building, I often tell the team that we need to spend three points to build user trust. First, it is most practical to spend time. Many foreign health care product companies are not large in scale, but they have been established for a long time, so consumers will naturally be convinced. The second is to spend money and invest in research and development, including raw materials, technology and other aspects. The third is word-of-mouth communication, properly guiding seed users to undergo fission. These are all channels that can help us build trust.

Back to the issue of channels, our past achievements were mostly online, but for emerging brands, it is more about seizing channel dividends.

We did very well on Douyin last year, and most of our traffic came from this. The unit price of similar products is 60 to 70 yuan, while ours is close to 200 yuan, which is already higher than many staple food brands.

Most of this year’s energy, including this brand upgrade, will be invested offline. Last year, I wanted to develop offline efforts simultaneously with Douyin, but due to the serious impact of the epidemic, I could only continue to verify the operation methods, and will do more offline layout this year.

< p>Q: How is the market education for pet health products? What misunderstandings exist?

A: The current market penetration rate of the entire pet industry is around 20%, and the level of education for pet health products is even lower. It is still in its infancy.

Only with the joint efforts of many parties can we pay more and more attention to pets, continue to enrich the knowledge of pet care, and the market will become mature and standardized, including the output of various brands through Douyin. Hongshu’s science popularization is all about educating users, which in turn makes more and more people care about whether the formula of the product is clean and whether there are many additives.

We must not only follow the footsteps of the entire market, but also follow the footsteps of the entire market. Put the brand's education concept in place, which is to solve pet problems based on health, lay down the basic skills, and leave the rest to the market and consumers.

Of course, the market still exists. There are many misunderstandings. For example, the protein content of international brands such as Royal and Nestle is usually 40%, but some domestic staple food brands increase the protein content to more than 45% or even 50% in order to make themselves look real. It will put a greater burden on the pet's gastrointestinal tract and can easily lead to obesity.

Many marketing nowadays deviates from the health of pets and likes to promote that cats and dogs will become fatter after eating. In fact, it is very serious. Unhealthy. I joked with the team that users of these irresponsible staple food brands will eventually become our customers, because when pets get old, they will have various problems such as joints, cardiovascular, and kidneys and need to rely on them. A large number of health care products.

I believe that these erroneous education cannot be verified by time. People will gradually establish the concept of scientific feeding, and pet health care consumption will tend to be rational and professional, knowing that truly good products are good for pets. Sales of trustworthy health products will continue to rise.