BEIJING, September 14 (TMTPost)— Kweichow Moutai, China’s most valuable distilled spirit brand well-known as the national liquor, is doubling down its diversification efforts to attract young customers.

Credit：Moutai

Moutai and Dove, a U.S. chocolate brand owned by Mars, announced they will launch a chocolate filled with liquor on September 16. According to Moutai’s mciro-app, some of chocolate offerings co-branded with Dove that would be available at weekend include the original flavor liquor-filled chocolate box with two pieces, six pieces and 12 pieces, which are priced at RMB35.00 (US$4.80), RMB99.00 and RMB169.00, respectively. Moutai also will offer chocolate boxes with less sugar, and such boxes for 2 pieces, six pieces and 12 pieces cost RMB39.00, RMB109.00 and RMB179.00 per unit, respectively.   

The liquor-filled chocolate confirms some news about Moutai’s new offerings. Moutai was said to roll out liquor-filled chocolate soon and another new offering-- chili sauces was said to be right under the development, a nationwide Chinese financial and economic daily newspaper National Business Daily reported last week. Many Moutai insiders later dismissed news about upcoming chili sauces. They told Chinese news media outlet Cailian that Moutai doesn’t’ have such offering if it doesn’t have any relevant release, in other words, the official information serves the standard. But Cailian learned that Moutai’s plan to launch new chocolate is true.

The partnership with Luckin marks Moutai’s latest effort to woo younger consumers. China has a huge consumer base of young with a potential young drinker population of up to 490 million, according to Ries Strategic Positioning Consulting. The consulting firm estimated only 11.2% of young people prefer the spirit with an alcohol content of more than 30 percent, and 39.6% of the group, the highest proportion, prefer drinks with about 10 % of alcohol.

Moutai management has indicated new consumer offerings would come. At an event for the first anniversary of the ice cream launch in May, Moutai Chairman Ding Xiongjun said his company will ramp up research and development (R&D) of products like chocolates, alcoholic beverages, popsicles to create product matrix with different types, prices and distinctive features, the state-backed financial and securities newspaper the Securities Times reported earlier this week.

The chocolate came more than a week after Moutai and its partner Luckin Coffee launched their co-branded drink. The so-called sauce-flavored latte was priced at RMB38.00 (US$5.20) apiece, and customers can get a 50% discount for a limited time if they order it online with a coupon. In China’s traditional distilled liquor Baijiu, sauce, also known as sauce aroma, refers to a flavor that smells similarity to fermented bean pastes and soy sauces. According to Luckin, each cup of the new latte is made with coffee and thick milk that contains alcohol less than 0.5% of overall content. The alcohol content comes from Feitian Moutai, the flagship Moutai offering which has 53% alcohol.

Luckin Coffee announced it sold more than 54.2 million cups of the sauce-flavored latte with the sales topping RMB100 million on September 4, the first day of its launch. The new drink broke daily sales record of a single offering for the coffee company founded in 2017. That is such an outstanding result compared with previous hits, such as the cheese latte that sold 1.31 million cups on its launch day. Luckin said on September 7 that many stores had sold out the sauce-flavored latte this week due to shortage of Moutai, therefore, it had placed an urgent order of Feitian Moutai and organized suppliers for emergency production. The company expected the latte should be first available in some of cities from September 10 and stores across China will gradually resume supply of the drink from September 19. 

The partnership with Luckin marks Moutai’s latest effort to woo younger consumers. The century-long brand introduced three variations of Moutai-infused ice cream on its “i-Moutai” digital marketing platform in May, 2022. All available units were sold out within mere 51 minutes, with an impressive total of over 40,000 units sold and generating sales exceeding RMB2.5 million. Ding Xiongjun revealed in the past May that the ice cream with Moutai flavor had sold nearly 10 million cups ahead of the anniversary.