[Exclusive] LG H&H quits baby food business after 10 years

Low birthrate, belated response to changing market conditions seen as reasons

By Park Gyu Jun

LG Household & Health Care’s (LG H&H) baby product brand, Babience, said it will stop producing all baby foods it has sold, including milk drinks for infants. Its withdrawal plan came 10 years after LG H&H started the baby food business. The decision has been attributed to the nation’s falling birthrate and the company’s belated response to the changing market conditions.

According to industry officials, Thursday, Babience told its customers recently that it will no longer produce Babience Kindermilch, Kabrita Goat Milk Toddler Formula Powder and all other baby foods after the second half of 2022. It added that the inventory is expected to be sold until February 2023.

Babience Kindermilch, a milk beverage launched in March 2017 to target infants, is especially among the brand’s most popular products, as its accumulated sales volume surpassed 34 million bottles.

In 2012, LG H&H entered the market for infant foods, such as powdered milk and milk drinks. In June of that year, the company gained huge popularity as it launched the nation’s first liquid baby formula, instead of powdered ones.

While increasing product lines since then, it has also stopped producing its products one by one. And now it decided to exit the baby food market, 10 years after it started such business.

As a result of the decision, LG H&H will close its own online baby product marketplace, Babience Mall. However, it will continue selling Babience’s non-food products, such as skincare products and detergents, via Naver Smart Store and offline outlets.

“We will stop the production of all foods for infants,” an LG H&H official said. “By focusing on R&Ds for Babience’s skincare products and detergents, and for the production of better products, we will come up with soft and reliable products to express our gratitude to our customers.”

==Maeil Dairies stops producing budget powdered milk after 6 years==

Against this backdrop, one of the nation’s leading dairy products firms, Maeil Dairies, decided to stop producing some of its powdered formula products.

Starting this month, Maeil Dairies will stop supplying Absolute Bon, one of its flagship brand Abolute’s five products – Bon, Myungjak, Goong, Sensitive and Goat. The company told its customers that it decided to stop the production in light of the changing market conditions.

Absolute Bon was launched in 2016 by renewing Maeil Mamma which was launched in 1983. Its production is set to stop six years after the renewal. Absolute Bon features relatively lower price, compared to the other four Absolute brands.

“Absolute has five brands, and we will remove the poorest-selling one, so as to focus more on the remaining four brands,” a Maeil Dairies official said.

*This was translated from the article originally written in Korean. For more accurate information, please refer to the original version by using the link below. In case of discrepancies between the two versions, the Korean version shall prevail.

https://n.news.naver.com/article/374/0000311866

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