从“找货”到“造链” 华润万家自有品牌开发走向供应链变革更深处

This article focuses on China Resources Vanguard (CR Vanguard)’s multi-line private brand strategy and implementation. For general readers, it shares core takeaways and standout product recommendations as follows:

1. CR Vanguard has launched 6 private brand lines covering all price points and consumption scenarios. This ranges from "Jiaxuan," an affordable everyday line designed for hard-discount stores, to "Runjia," which focuses on iconic regional specialty goods, and a premium line for high-end supermarkets, meeting diversified demands across different consumption scenarios.

2. Readers can discover a range of highly-rated, cost-effective products. These include Runjia’s Dunhuang co-branded apricot kernel drink, which contains no artificial flavors or preservatives, retains authentic Northwestern Chinese flavor, and quickly topped CR Vanguard’s private brand beverage sales ranking after launch; Jiaxuan’s 19.9-yuan whole case of full-fat pure milk, which maintains a 3.3g protein per 100ml standard; and 7.5-yuan packs of 12 bottles of natural mineral water, among other affordable quality options.

3. Readers can also learn about CR Vanguard’s strict quality control systems: even for suppliers with official safety certifications, the in-house team conducts independent multi-dimensional on-site audits, and no products are exempt from inspection, ensuring consistent quality.

This article provides actionable insights for brands looking to collaborate with retail chains and adapt to new consumption trends:

1. For brand marketing, brands can learn from cross-industry co-branding to expand reach. Runjia’s co-branded tea drink with the Dunhuang Academy, paired with offline celebrity pop-up events, successfully attracted Gen Z consumers and quickly became a hit product, topping the category sales ranking shortly after launch.

2. For product R&D and positioning, brands can adopt a differentiated tiered positioning strategy. CR Vanguard’s 6 brand lines are tailored to different retail formats, covering high-end, affordable, and mass-demand segments, accurately matching the current consumer trend where shoppers simultaneously seek affordable options, cultural added value, and high-quality experiences.

3. For pricing and collaboration, brands can adopt a full-link efficiency improvement and cost reduction model that does not squeeze supplier profit margins. Costs are cut by optimizing packaging, production, and logistics processes. Brands can also co-create customized products with channel partners, avoid direct competition with existing mainstream products, and jointly open up new incremental markets to achieve a win-win outcome.

This article summarizes CR Vanguard’s innovative private brand business model, offering actionable insights and opportunity prompts for retail sellers:

1. In the current period of consumer transformation, private brands represent a clear high-growth track. As consumers hold diversified demands for affordable staples, high quality, and cultural experiences, sellers can carve out a niche via differentiated positioning, launch segmented brands aligned with their own retail formats, and capture market share by matching unmet consumer needs.

2. Sellers can learn a scientific approach to cost reduction: instead of the traditional strategy of squeezing supplier profits, sellers can break down costs across the entire supply chain, and improve efficiency in non-experience-related links including packaging, production, and logistics. This delivers low prices without compromising quality, while preserving reasonable profit margins for all upstream and downstream partners.

3. Sellers need to guard against latent industry risks. Simple OEM sales rarely build long-term competitiveness. To succeed, sellers must go deep into the supply chain to control quality and proactively participate in co-creating product development. They also must maintain strict quality control, conduct active independent inspections rather than relying on suppliers’ existing certifications, and avoid reputation damage from quality issues.

This article outlines transformation directions and business opportunities for manufacturing factories, especially those focused on regional specialties and intangible cultural heritage (ICH) crafts:

1. There is growing market demand for standardized versions of traditional local flavors and ICH products. Factories can partner with large supermarket chains’ private brands to modernize and standardize traditional crafts, and access national distribution channels. For example, the ICH soy sauce factory partnered with Runjia achieved stable mass production after standardization upgrades, and successfully entered the national market.

2. There are clear collaborative business opportunities: factories can co-develop customized production lines with large supermarket chains like CR Vanguard, and adjust product differentiation based on the chain’s first-hand consumer insights. This avoids price conflict with the factory’s existing distribution products, while securing stable large-scale orders that help smooth production volatility and deliver steady, reasonable profits. Mengniu and Haitian already have successful collaboration cases with this model.

3. Traditional factories can draw transformation insights: factories must proactively adapt to end-consumer demand, cooperate with channel partners to optimize craft and upgrade supply chain management, and jointly improve product quality to access larger markets and achieve market-oriented inheritance of traditional crafts.

This article outlines the current development trends and core pain points of the supermarket private brand track, providing directional reference for related service providers:

1. In terms of industry trends: competition in supermarket private brands has moved beyond surface-level product sales to deep-seated industry change. The industry has shifted from the traditional "source and resell" buyer mindset to deep supply chain management and collaborative co-creation. More supermarkets are moving upstream to the source of the industrial chain, driving rising demand for services related to supply chain optimization, quality control management, and process upgrading.

2. In terms of core industry pain points: traditional local flavors and ICH products face difficulties with standardized mass production and consistent flavor retention; the FMCG industry has long relied on squeezing supplier profits to cut costs, which damages retailer-supplier relationships and hurts product quality; and long-haul cross-regional transportation exposes raw materials to temperature and humidity fluctuations that compromise quality.

3. Providers can draw on proven solution frameworks: for regional specialties, promote a "direct source sourcing + industrial improvement" model; for cost reduction needs, promote a full-link cost breakdown and optimization solution to cut costs without squeezing supplier profit margins; for quality control, promote a multi-dimensional active independent audit framework to guarantee product quality.

This article introduces CR Vanguard’s latest private brand practices and methodology, offering operational development reference for retail platform operators:

1. The demands of both partners and consumers have changed: stakeholders no longer settle for platforms acting only as sales channels, and instead require platforms to provide consumer insight empowerment and supply chain collaborative co-creation support. Platforms need to proactively transform, shifting from the traditional channel buyer role to a supply chain collaborative co-creator.

2. Platforms can adopt the latest proven operational practices: build a multi-brand matrix to position by retail format, covering all scenarios from hard discount stores to general supermarkets and premium supermarkets, to match current consumers’ diversified demands, and avoid internal competition via differentiated positioning; cut costs without squeezing partner profits by improving full-link efficiency, and deliver a three-way win.

3. Platforms can adopt proven risk mitigation practices: pay special attention to quality control, build an active independent audit quality control system, reject the practice of exempting suppliers from inspection, and avoid reputation damage from quality issues; when developing customized products, stagger positioning from partners’ existing distribution products to avoid price conflict, maintain healthy retailer-supplier relationships, and enable long-term stable cooperation.

This article presents new trends and innovative models in China’s supermarket private brand industry amid consumer transformation, offering high sample value for industry research:

1. In terms of new industry trends: competition in supermarket private brands has moved from surface-level product competition to the deep end of supply chain transformation. The core industry logic has shifted from the traditional "source and resell" channel buyer mindset to a new mindset of deep supply chain collaborative co-creation. The overall consumption structure has shifted from "single-demand driven" to "two-way supply and demand engagement", and the market needs new supply that meets emerging demands for health, cultural value, and quality.

2. In terms of new emerging industry problems: the FMCG industry has historically cut costs by relying on squeezing supplier profit margins, which easily damages retailer-supplier relationships and ultimately hurts product quality; traditional local flavors and ICH crafts have long faced pain points around standardized mass production, and struggle to balance flavor retention and scaled output; and low-priced products are often trapped in the industry bias that "low price equals low quality".

3. In terms of innovative business models: CR Vanguard has developed an innovative "format positioning + diversified collaboration" methodology. It covers different segmented demands via a multi-brand matrix, and achieves cost reduction and quality improvement via full-link efficiency optimization, balancing the interests of consumers, supermarkets, and supply chain partners to achieve sustainable development. This provides a replicable new development sample for the entire industry.