Luckin launches freeze-dried coffee with two flavors

Luckin, a famous Chinese coffee chain, recently launched two freeze-dried coffees, and consumers can place an order in their App. 

One of them uses coffee beans from Yirgacheffe, and the other uses a mixture of coffee beans from Ethiopia and the Yunnan River Valley. 

In essence, freeze-dried coffee is a kind of instant coffee, and consumers can brew a cup of freeze-dried coffee anywhere as long as they use water. It doesn’t even need hot water. But it has a richer taste than traditional instant coffee. 

As we said before, Chinese consumers prefer milk tea to coffee in offline consumption, so many Chinese coffee brands are refocusing on upgrading instant coffee. As a result, freeze-dried coffee is popular in China, and KFC has previously launched its own freeze-dried coffee. Now, Luckin has joined the competition. 

According to media reports, Luckin sold more than 3000 sets of freeze-dried coffee in its first two days on the market. The first batch of products has been completely sold out. 

Luckin is a Chinese coffee chain founded in 2017, rapidly opening more than 4,000 stores in the three years since its establishment. But for overseas readers, it is well known because of its financial fraud last year. 

The company’s main theme this year has been to try to shake off financial fraud, releasing many new products and trying to expand sales channels beyond offline stores, such as social e-commerce in Wechat. In addition, it has been selling a large number of non-coffee products in its App since the end of last year. 

In early November, a Luckin clerk told the media that the real daily order volume of each store of the brand in Beijing had exceeded 550. In 2019, the company’s executives claimed that its daily orders per store had reached 444, but it was later proved to be fake, with only 263 in fact. But in this interview, the clerk said, “We are really making money.” 

Luckin revealed at an internal meeting in the middle of this year that the company will make a profit on a per-store basis by 2021. But everything remains to be proved.