On October 17, the 8th International Macadamia Symposium was officially held in Lincang, 27 countries and regions from the experts, scholars, industry leaders around the development of Macadamia nuts, joined a full range of  information exchanges and discussions. Zhang Liaoyuan, executive chairman of the Frying-Nut Committee of the China Food Industry Association and chairman of the Three Squirrels, attended the meeting and made a keynote speech around the change and development direction of the nuts consumption market.

As a well-known e-commerce brand in China, Three Squirrels have rapidly grown into China's leading food e-commerce enterprises since their founding in 2012. They have expanded from nuts to whole-food snacks, with more than 600 kinds of products. In the past year, the total sales of nuts in various domestic e-commerce platforms ranged from 15 billion yuan to 16 billion yuan, and Three Squirrels has contributed to the total sales of 4 billion yuan.

Zhang Liaoyuan said that since 2017, the growth of online sales in the whole nut industry has slowed down gradually, and the domestic nut market was undergoing new changes. First, the sales of high-quality selected nuts have increased by more than 20%; secondly, the demand for category and nutrition has become very obvious; thirdly, "fresh" has become the most concerned indicator for the consumer group of nuts products. In nuts category search hot words, there were nine hot words related to "fresh"; finally,  individualization highlights consumption demand  heading for individuation classification. Zhang Liaoyuan believes that four changes is about to attract new opportunities in nut industry.

New consumption: new opportunities brought about by the new generation of consumption concept change

At present, the consumer groups in the domestic nut market are gradually moving from the post-85-90 generation to the post-95-00 generation. The consumption concept of the new generation of consumers can be summarized as the following three indicators:
First, flavor: the new generation of exciting, challenging, fashionable flavor has a great demand, which has become the key to the choice. 
Second, health: the new generation of consumer groups have a higher pursuit of health, at the same time, "health" is also a key reason for the growing popularity of nuts products.
Third, emotions: the new generation of consumer groups through the era of material shortage, product brand appearance must meet the emotional expression of consumer groups and social needs.

New retail forced nut industry upgrading

First, the essence of new retail is not only cost and efficiency, but also marketing digitalization. Under the background of new retail, enterprises can obtain consumer data from online and offline, which will be returned to the cultivation, production, processing and sales of nut products, forming a fully traceable industrial data chain system. Practitioners in all aspects of the industry chain can better understand the needs of consumers.
Second, it is cheaper. With the improvement of social circulation efficiency, many products can reach the terminal stores directly. In the future, 6.8 million offline couple stores across the country will be able to sell nuts directly. Reducing the participation of middlemen will make the cost of products lower.
Third, the convenience is a consideration. China's online and offline integration process is an advantage that Western countries do not have. Many formats have been confused online or offline. Products can be delivered to you whenever nuts are needed in any place at any time. This is the change that new retailing has brought to the Chinese nut industry.

All manufacturing industries in the future will be service industries.

Different from the cost consideration of traditional manufacturing industry, the essence of new manufacturing is user thinking. Taking nuts as an example, how to produce products with fresher quality, more diverse tastes and richer varieties to meet the individual needs of consumers has become the core of product development. At present, the Three Squirrels "freshness" strategy requires that the products sold must be produced within 20 days, which largely forces the reshaping of the product manufacturing chain.

New scene to promote segmentation of nuts consumption market

At present, the market of nuts products is gradually subdivided by many specific scenarios, such as "fitness", "pregnant women", "elderly" and so on. Accurately occupying any subdivision of the market can help enterprises to obtain a huge consumer group; at the same time, periodic consumption is gradually becoming a prominent feature. The Daily Nuts series has largely met the needs of consumers every day.
Under the market environment of continuous segmentation, the research and development of nuts products need to be integrated across borders. Its significance lies in meeting the needs of consumers for different categories and flavors of products under the health needs.
Zhang Liaoyuan indicated that the planting area of macadamia nuts in Lincang has reached 2.6 million mu, which is encouraging and exciting. With the rise of the Chinese macadamia nut industry, China will become a new driving force for the development of the international macadamia nut industry. He said: "The nuts of the world can not be separated from the Chinese nuts, because China has the world's largest consumer market; The nuts of the world can not be separated from the Chinese made in China, because the Chinese people have a unique understanding of flavor. The nuts of the world can not be separated from the cultivation of China, because China's vast territory and diverse climate, an nuts cultivation provide a good environment. It is hoped that the Chinese nut industry can join hands with the international nut industry to promote the development of the whole industry.