Luckin diversifies, inks juice joint venture with Louis Dreyfus
The business looks to capitalise on China’s “fastest-growing” NFC market.
Luckin Coffee stores in China will soon offer a range of juice options, following its agreement with Louis Dreyfus Company to establish a joint venture to develop a co-branded Luckin Juice business in the world’s second largest economy.
Specifically, the JV will focus on co-branded Not From Concentrate (NFC) orange, lemon and apple juices, with additional plans to bottle and brand other fruit and vegetable juices. Luckin Coffee stores will serve as sales outlets, with the brand set to market its juices via other channels.
“China is the fastest-growing NFC market globally and, together, Luckin and LDC see a significant opportunity to offer high quality, sustainably-developed NFC juices to the Chinese consumer,” Luckin Coffee senior vice president and co-founder Jinyi Guo said.
Through the joint venture with LDC, Luckin says it is extending its upstream toward production, enhancing product quality control and offering “better” products. In the future, the fast-expanding coffee chain expects to further cut costs to “meet the needs of broader consumers and increase their consumption frequency.”
“Our areas of expertise are totally complementary, with LDC’s know-how in managing a sustainable juice value chain and Luckin’s knowledge of the Chinese consumer, marketing and digital platform know-how, and established consumer base. We have all the ingredients for a true win-win situation,” LDC global vice president and regional head for LDC North Asia James Zhou said.
As of end-June 2019, Luckin has 2,963 stores in 40 cities across China.
