Introduction:While well-known tea and coffee brands fiercely compete in the market and attract significant attention, the raw material and packaging suppliers behind these brands are quietly growing stronger and collectively moving toward the capital markets. From sugar substitutes and fruit juice concentrates to paper cups and plastic tableware, how are these supply chain enterprises steadily growing amid the competition of terminal brands and leveraging the trend to go public? This article will delve into the roles, development trajectories, and market opportunities of these key suppliers.
While popular brands such as Heytea, Nayuki, Starbucks, and Luckin frequently launch co-branded products, new flavors, and price promotions, most of the outside attention is focused on the marketing offensives of the terminal brands. However, few notice that behind the glamorous facades of these brands, there is a group of suppliers quietly rising and gradually stepping into the spotlight of the capital markets.
These enterprises include manufacturers that provide plant-based creamers, sugar substitutes, fruit juice concentrates, flavored syrups, and even packaging materials such as paper cups and plastic cups. Though they rarely appear directly in front of consumers, they are important cornerstones supporting the entire new-style tea and coffee industry. With the continued expansion of the new tea and specialty coffee markets, these upstream suppliers have seen significant growth in performance and have successively launched IPO plans, collectively facing the test of the capital markets.
Take Jihe Food as an example. Established in 2001, it is one of the earlier representatives in the new-style beverage supply chain to enter the capital markets. Its clientele includes traditional beverage brands such as Uni-President and Super Group, as well as emerging tea drink brands like CoCo, Auntie Huang, Gumiao, and Mixue. By stably supplying key ingredients such as plant-based creamers, Jihe Food has firmly established itself as a core player in the supply chain.
Another noteworthy company is San Yuan Biotech, which has been committed to the industrial production of erythritol since 2007. Erythritol is a common sugar substitute often used as a low-calorie sweetener in food and beverages. According to its prospectus, the company’s main customers include the popular brand Genki Forest and leading new tea players like Heytea. The demand for healthy sweeteners from these brands has been a major driving force behind San Yuan Biotech’s rapid growth.
Beyond sugar substitutes, fruit juice and flavoring ingredients are also indispensable components in new tea beverages. Since its establishment in 2007, Tianye Shares has been focusing on the supply of raw fruit juices, quick-frozen fruit blocks, and fresh fruits. The company was once listed on the New Third Board in 2015, but at that time the new-style tea market had not yet fully exploded. It wasn’t until after 2020, with the rise of brands like Nayuki and ChaBaiDao, that Tianye Shares quickly became a major supplier. Among them, Nayuki became its second-largest customer. Data shows that in 2021, the four major brands—Nayuki, ChaBaiDao, YiDianDian, and Auntie Huang—collectively contributed 56.49% of its operating income, highlighting the enormous demand for fruit juice ingredients in the new tea market.
In the packaging materials sector, Hengxin Life is one of the main suppliers of paper cups and plastic tableware. In May of this year, the company officially submitted its prospectus to the ChiNext board, planning to raise 828 million yuan. Although its brand name may be unfamiliar to the average consumer, its products are widely used by numerous well-known chain brands such as Luckin Coffee, Starbucks, Heytea, Mixue, Manner Coffee, Burger King, McDonald’s, and Dicos. In 2021, Hengxin Life achieved revenue of 719 million yuan and sold more than 2.1 billion paper and plastic cups, demonstrating astonishing market penetration capabilities.
Additionally, Dexin Food submitted its prospectus to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s main board on July 6 of this year, planning to go public. Its main products include beverage concentrates and flavored syrups, and it serves as an ingredient supplier for brands such as Starbucks, Luckin, and Nayuki. These concentrates and syrups not only influence the taste and flavor of beverages but are also key elements in ensuring consistency and quality stability.
Looking at the overall trend, the rapid expansion of new-style tea and specialty coffee has not only driven competition among terminal brands but also brought unprecedented development opportunities for upstream raw material and packaging suppliers. As the performance of these enterprises continues to rise, they are choosing to leverage the capital markets to further expand production capacity, strengthen R&D, and enhance market presence, forming a clear wave of “supply chain IPOs.”
While terminal brands are still striving to find profitable models and market positioning, these hidden champions have quietly grown stronger and steadily stepped onto the stage of the capital markets. For consumers, although the names of these suppliers rarely appear in plain sight, every cup of beverage they enjoy is underpinned by the technology and supply support of these key enterprises.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
