Are the heady days of “limitless” growth CBEC and Daigou business gone forever?

How does this reconcile with Chinese consumers’ previously seemingly insatiable demand for Australian and New Zealand brands? What happened to this market during the last two years of lockdowns, closed borders, geopolitical upheaval and unhelpful political brinksmanship?

Importantly, what exactly does doing CBEC and in-country China business look like now and where is the business model going? What do brands now need to do to serve Chinese consumers and continue to win in Tier-1, 2 and 3 cities as well as other reference Chinese markets across APAC? Where are the regulations at? Should we be focused on Export Only (vs CBEC)?

Like you, we wanted to know the answers to all of these questions and so many more.

In our opinion and based on work with some of APAC's leading raw material manufacturers and distributors, Proprietary Ingredients have long been an important item in the Australian industry’s commercial toolbox.

PIs provide an additional layer of protection for raw materials, where trade secret, but not patented manufacturing processes are disclosed only to the TGA under strict confidentiality, which has prevented copycat raw material manufacturers from producing replica materials that can then ‘piggy back’ proprietary clinical data, or in some cases deliver ingredients at a lower input quantity with more powerful label claims. In a competitive global industry it is really a case of when, not if, a key raw material will be emulated often in a lower cost manufacturing environment.