As the Chinese New Year approaches, large supermarkets are decorated with a wide range of New Year's goods. However, if you look carefully with Aisa Food Exhibition, you will know who is the real "top stream" of New Year's goods. Placed in the center of the shelves are rows of nuts gift boxes, and when you go in, you will see large boxes of 66-pack Ferrero, a bowl of Dove and Snickers chocolate piled up in the shape of towers. In contrast, the shelves of candy had only two rows and not much variety. The classics like Great White Rabbit, sorghum syrup, peanut and coconut candies, are nearly half the price of Halal, and are labeled with price reductions and discounts. Only occasionally do some older people pass by to buy a bag.

Many born in the 70s and the 80s have very deep memory of candy. Only on New Year's Day, adults will generously weigh a few pounds of candy, as a rare "luxury" in the Spring Festival distributed to children. Though the New Year's money from the elders may be very little, the candies always filled the pockets of the children. Some delicious white rabbit milk candies can even become "hard currency" between children, used in exchange for all kinds of gadgets. It can be said that in the past, a large part of the children's happiness during the New Year was given by candies.

When we suddenly realized that we "do not like candy", the candy market has been shrinking for many years.

Data show that China's confectionery market share continued to shrink from 2014 to 2016, and total sales fell to 85 billion yuan in 2016, and the number of large-scale confectionery enterprises suffered losses amounted to 38% in that year. In the subsequent years from 2016 to 2018, China's confectionery production was 3.52 million tons, 3.31 million tons and 2.88 million tons, respectively, with an accelerating rate of decline.

Aisa Food Exhibition believes, this is on the one hand caused by the change in the dietary habits of the people. In the past five years, Chinese consumers' demand for health has been increasing, and almost all diets are labeled with "low sugar", "less sugar" and "no sugar", and even desserts are heavily reduced in sugar or even use various sugar substitutes. Sugar reduction and even the use of a variety of sugar substitutes (erythritol, stevia leaf and Luo Han Guo sugar, etc.). Against this backdrop, the "giant sweet" annual sugar gift packs are like a big enemy.

On the other hand, with the continuous enrichment and diversification, snacks took the place of candy. Xufuji, which was the No. 1 brand in the candy market for 17 consecutive years, now rarely appear in the annual souvenirs for visiting friends and relatives. Instead, they are replaced by nuts, puffed food gift packs, and healthier fruit gift boxes.

Diabetes of the elderly, beer belly of middle-aged men, anti-aging need of women anti-sugar, and teeth protection of children are all reasons to reject sugar. Thus, candy is gradually losing its place in the annual gift box.