Hong Kong R & D brewing machine for tea marketing Chinese cold-pressed fruit juice machine British Harrods department store

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Coffee brewing machines have become very popular in recent years and have become dominated by foreign brands, making it difficult for new companies to compete. Some start-ups in Hong Kong have developed "intelligent brewing machines" to make coffee as well as Western-style flower-and-fruit tea and traditional Chinese tea. It has successfully sold 40,000 units in mainland China. After that, taking advantage of the upsurge of household small cold-pressed blenders, the related products will be launched at the end of the month and sold in the famous Harrods department store in the UK. The company's next goal is to develop a traditional Chinese medicine brewing machine in order to open up the health care market.

Two sisters, Li Mingxin and Li Ganghui, co-founders of Contact Design Group Limited, used to work in marketing and product design respectively. Li Mingxin worked as a brand manager in Italy and Singapore, while his sister Li Ganghui was a product designer and worked in the Netherlands. Originally, European enterprises have always attached importance to product design, and the status of product designers is quite high. But in 2012, EU countries were plagued by economic problems, preventing local companies from developing new products as actively as they used to. On the other hand, Li Ganghui also found that there was a growing need to cooperate with mainland Chinese manufacturers in the product design work she received at that time. As a result, she thought that if she set up her own product design company, it would be more appropriate to return to Hong Kong. At the end of 2012, she returned to Hong Kong to set up a company and participated in the "Design Entrepreneurship training Program" of the Science and Technology Park, while Li Mingxin returned to Hong Kong in 2013 to join the company.

At the beginning of the business, the company's business was just valet design, with two main types of customers, one is the manufacturing industry in mainland China, especially the small household appliance manufacturers, and the other is the start-up enterprises in the start-up parks in mainland China. Because of their lack of design and production experience, Contact Design became the consultant and provided assistance to the Entrepreneurship Park in mainland China. However, the freedom of valet design is limited, and some customers ask for change in the midst of stability, making only a small amount of innovation to avoid excessive risk; in terms of income, most of them belong to one-off design fees, and customers' products may not be put into production in the end, or product sales are mediocre, unable to collect royalties according to sales volume.

Coffee machine competes to develop tea brewing machine

As she has designed capsule coffee brewers and blenders for many companies and mastered the knowledge of the products, Li Ganghui thought of launching home-designed and branded brewers and blenders. As there are already many coffee brewers on the market, she decided to launch an "intelligent brewing machine" that can brew coffee, Western-style flower and fruit tea and traditional Chinese tea to open up new markets.

"Intelligent brewing machine" means that users can adjust different parameters, including water temperature, water volume, pre-soaking time, water pressure, etc., according to their personal preferences through the mobile phone App and Wi-Fi, specially designed for making tea. In addition, although the brewing machine is small in design, it can still inject 1 liter of water.

Li Mingxin and Li Ganghui also hope to build an ecosystem under their control, sell consumables and generate sustained income. They know how to cooperate with foreign suppliers of raw materials of flower and fruit tea to buy scented tea, and then find contract factories in mainland China to make scented tea cakes in capsules, and then launch them under their own brands. in addition, they also went to Yunnan to cooperate with tea house to purchase high-grade tea, such as Chenxiang black tea, to make Chinese tea cakes in capsules.

Sell 40,000 units in two and a half years to earn back R & D investment

The company partnered with a mainland Chinese dealer at the end of 2014 to sell smart brewing machines and about 20 matching capsule tea cakes on JD.com Mall and TV shopping channels. Although there is not much publicity, over the past two and a half years, nearly 40, 000 smart brewing machines have been sold, each with a retail price of RMB990 to RMB 1280, earning more than investment in research and development. At present, several Hong Kong companies are in discussions to become distributors. In addition, some tea house also expressed the hope that the company would produce intelligent brewing machines for them.

Li Mingxin said that the company is improving the mobile phone App and capsule packaging, and the new version of the mobile phone App will provide suggested brewing parameters for seven to eight kinds of tea. It can also be ordered to brew flower and fruit tea on time, and capsule tea cakes can be ordered directly in App. As for the next generation of capsule packaging, the upper layer will abandon the use of aluminum foil and switch to filter paper, which does not need to be torn open by hand and is more environmentally friendly.

In addition, in response to the health trend in recent years, some consumers have a demand for cold-pressed fruit juice. this year, the company developed a small cold-pressed juice machine JUIaVIE, as well as matching single-use biodegradable plastic bags and multiple-use silicone bags. One of the major advantages of JUIaVIE is that there is no need to clean the machine. Users only need to discard plastic bags or wash silicone bags that have been used many times after each use, which is more convenient than some similar products on the market. JUIaVIE conducted crowdfunding on Kickstarter in January this year (then known as JUISIR) and raised about HK $3.32 million at that time. In addition, the company exhibited the product at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in early January this year, attracting a British company to cooperate as its UK agent. JUIaVIE will be sold at the famous Harrods department store in the UK on August 25, with a retail price of about £600,000 (about HK $6100) each, and will be launched in several European countries later.

Draw up your own fruit bag to set up a factory in the future port.

In Hong Kong, the company will hold a product launch at the end of this month, which will be attended by representatives of a number of department stores; JUIaVIE is expected to be launched in Hong Kong soon; and other restaurants and hotels have expressed interest in buying. Although JUIaVIE has invested several million Hong Kong dollars in research and development, it is optimistic that it will be able to return the cost by the end of this year because it will be sold in many European countries.

At the very beginning of the launch of JUIaVIE, the company only provided degradable plastic bags and silicone bags for matching use for users to buy their own fruits. Later, they will launch their own fruit bags, or even set up a fruit juice shop in the business district. At present, they are discussing the details of cooperation with fruit suppliers. It is believed that fruit bags will still be manufactured by mainland Chinese manufacturers at the initial stage, but two or three years later, they may set up their own factories in Hong Kong to produce fruit bags.

Research on the brewing machine of traditional Chinese medicine to attack the health market

Li Ganghui said that a traditional Chinese medicine brewing machine is being developed, which requires the cooperation of Chinese medicine practitioners to provide the formula and find out the suitable brewing parameters to be pre-installed in the mobile phone App; on the other hand, the company also needs to work with Chinese medicine suppliers to launch capsule-type Chinese medicine cakes. It is estimated that the Chinese medicine brewing machine will not be launched until next year, and will be mainly sold to consumers who like to eat Chinese herbal medicine for health care.