SIAL Shenzhen 2024 reports that recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on the Development of the Silver Economy to Enhance the Well-being of the Elderly, the first national-level silver economy policy. With the introduction of the "silver economy" policy, catering to senior citizens has become a new trend, especially in the dairy industry. SIAL Shenzhen 2024 was informed that a number of domestic dairy companies are optimistic about the prospects for the development of milk powder for the elderly, and they are stepping up involvement in track.

Milk powder is one of the mainstream nutritional supplements, in recent years, many domestic and foreign dairy companies such as Danone, Nestle, Yili, Mengniu, Feihe, Ausnutria Dairy, etc. seize the opportunity of the silver economy, accelerating participation in the milk powder market for the middle and old aged which contributes to another round of growth. Data shows that middle-aged and old-aged milk powder has outstanding sales, high proportion and fast growth rate in the brewing products category, leading the whole category.

Wei Yanqing, executive president of Ausnutria Dairy (China) Co., Ltd. told SIAL Shenzhen 2024 that in terms of market expansion, the consumption habits of the middle-aged and elderly market still haven’t been formed and the user communication costs are higher. But the middle-aged and elderly milk powder market has great potential for development and space, the competition is not as fierce as the infant formula market. The company said that they are increasing the R&D of the adult nutritional products. According to recent data, the adult nutritional products showed a large double-digit growth and the sales momentum of the various channels is great.

As can be seen in the survey, there are some dairy companies that have begun to launch functional nutritional milk powder for the elderly. Such as products form Feihe brand for adults to enhance self-care, cardiovascular health, bone health, blood sugar health and other different functional needs, the launch of phytosterol ester milk powder, lactoferrin formula, etc.; a formula of goat's milk powder from Ausnutria Dairy is based on the refined nutritional needs of the elderly population, customized to meet the demand for cardio-cerebral and cerebral blood vessel health needs which is another heavyweight new product in the market of the middle and old age milk powder.

Despite the current large number of enterprises entering the game, seeing from the current distribution of products on the market, middle-aged and elderly milk powder mainly focused on high calcium, sugar-free, probiotics rich products, which is a serious homogenization and lack of diversity. The current milk powder for middle-aged and elderly people is mainly based on basic nutritional supplementation, which is supplemented with calcium, iron, zinc and vitamins. There are few products with targeted research on the health of middle-aged and elderly people.

SIAL Shenzhen 2024 believes that the future direction of milk powder for the middle-aged and elderly must be formulated, and reflect functionality, such as activating immunity, cardiovascular protection, promote intestinal fluency, etc. China has not formed a complete product system for the middle-aged and elderly and the development of relevant standards is not sound. What needs all parties to participate is the formation of a standard system to help the market development. Compared to the baby powder market, the basic scientific research of milk powder for the elderly is relatively weak, and there is still the need for relevant enterprises to continue to increase investment in research and development, targeted to meet the demand.