Genki Forest's Innovation Camp 2044 in Xianning showcased innovative drinks from young product managers, emphasizing passion and innovation driving industry change.
Genki Forest Creation Camp 2044 Opens in Xianning: Young People Deliver a New Answer for the Beverage Industry
On March 30, hundreds of young people, food and beverage industry experts, and media partners gathered at the Xianning High-Tech Zone to participate in the second "Genki Forest Creation Camp 2044" event, taking on the multiple roles of "taster," "reviewer," and "chronicler." At the event, over a dozen young product managers took the stage one after another with several new products from the Genki Forest family, sharing the original inspiration behind their creations and their research and development journeys.
As a "beverage tasting" event that blends product debuts, taste testing, and cross-industry dialogue, "Genki Forest Creation Camp 2044" provides a stage for young innovators to exchange ideas and spark debate, allowing participants from different backgrounds to break down barriers and engage in deep conversations around taste, aesthetics, and lifestyle to ignite inspiration. At the same time, the Creation Camp, in its role as "chronicler," faithfully preserves the origins and history of every product as it comes to life, paying tribute to innovation while also leaving behind a "flavor archive" that can be traced back in the future. Innovation, experimentation, and passion: the "passion code" behind the new products at Creation Camp 2044
Trusting in the creativity of young people, exploring their needs, and always staying in step with them—Genki Forest Creation Camp 2044 grew out of a promise made at the 2024 distributor conference to "reunite 20 years from now," and it serves as a concentrated reflection of Genki Forest's commitment to giving young people a stage and opportunities while repaying user trust through a long-term approach. On the Creation Camp stage, the real protagonists are a group of product managers whose average age is under 30. Youth is just their shared label; insight into consumer demand, persistence in innovation, and a passion for beverages are the underlying drivers that brought them to the Creation Camp 2044 stage.
At this Creation Camp, the new products brought by the dozen-plus product managers included iterations of Genki Forest's mature product lines such as sparkling water, Alien Electrolyte Water, Ice Tea, and Hao Zi Zai, as well as new attempts to make a difference in the traditional beverage space, such as Qing Liang Tea, which follows Genki Forest's six principles for good products and pushes as close as possible to a handcrafted brew. Meanwhile, first-time launches like Cola Beer, Probiotic Sparkling Drink, Hawthorn Three Gentlemen, and Dan Zhen Brown Rice Milk targeted different consumer needs and scenarios—such as gatherings, breakfast, and family reunions—through bold innovation and development. What more can a soda do beyond feeling refreshing and providing energy? At the Creation Camp, a carbonated electrolyte drink called Genki Forest GO offered a brand-new answer. This carbonated electrolyte beverage was developed with a dedicated "GO! Vitality Hydration Proprietary Formula," adding zinc gluconate and B vitamins to accelerate physical recovery and maintain an energetic state, tailored for outdoor sports and high-intensity sweat-inducing scenarios. Genki Forest GO meets this need through the "add a little more" philosophy of good products.
"If herbal tea were invented today, what should it look like? Do we really have to wait until we're eating hotpot to think about drinking it?" The product manager of Hao Zi Zai Qing Liang Tea raised her own question, and her answer was a new herbal tea that blends heritage and innovation. While staying true to the slow-brewed base of six herbal ingredients, it replaces white sugar with higher-cost yellow rock sugar to cut down on sweetness and cloyingness, while adding lemon and mint to bring in freshness and a touch of acidity to offset the bitterness of the herbal components. Innovation isn't necessarily grand, but passion is always sincere. "What we're trying to do isn't to challenge the herbal tea industry, but to use passion and innovation to align with today's consumers' needs," said the product manager of Hao Zi Zai Qing Liang Tea.
How can you feel like you're drinking at a gathering without actually consuming alcohol, while still enjoying that sense of participation? How can you lower the barrier to "eating well" and make a drinkable nutritional breakfast that's both accessible and nutritionally complete? How do you solve the impossible triangle of plum flavor being "tasty, cuts through grease, and quenches thirst" all at once? At the Creation Camp, product managers raised one challenge after another rooted in real consumer insights and technological iteration, then answered them with products like Cola Beer, Dan Zhen Brown Rice Milk, and Green Tea with Jasmine and Plum—each delivering a fresh interpretation through both ingredient innovation and technological upgrades.
A Factory Built Solely for Experimentation: The Confidence That Lets Young People Innovate Freely
"Every year, Genki Forest invests heavily in innovation and R&D, developing a large number of new products or new flavors, but not many of them actually make it to market," said Genki Forest founder Tang Binsen, explaining the original intent behind giving young people the freedom to innovate boldly. "Innovation only yields a systematic methodology through a sufficient number of trial-and-error samples, and only then can we create truly innovative products by leveraging Genki Forest's existing systems and talent."
Man Fen! 100C Vitamin C Juice Soda required a dedicated sugar-reduction formula to control total sugar while preserving the authentic flavor of lemon and calamansi, along with an optimized bottle design to address the issue of vitamin C degrading when exposed to light. The Probiotic Sparkling Drink features two proprietary prebiotic formulas that fully meet the Gold Standard of the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics, paired with a fermentation liquid developed through the synergistic fermentation of six strains to achieve a healthy, low-sugar formula. Ben Zha · Fresh-Squeezed Lemon Water introduced upgrades across lemon selection, flash-freezing cold-press technology, and the large-format "ton-ton" bottle packaging. The willingness to experiment is never just a slogan; behind every bold innovation, there needs to be a solid underlying R&D system providing strong support to lower the cost of trial and error and improve innovation efficiency.
If the Creation Camp 2044 stage showcases Genki Forest's "creative density," then another major highlight of this year's camp—the unveiling of the Xianning Innovation Institute—provides the "creative depth" that backs up Genki Forest's approach of giving young people authority and letting them push boundaries.
As an important platform for Genki Forest's R&D investment to move into deeper waters, the Xianning Innovation Institute, scheduled to be put into use by the end of 2025, is co-funded by the Xianning city government and Genki Forest. Positioned as a one-stop R&D and innovation testing base, it is dedicated to incubating new product categories and facilitating the commercialization of new processes. The facility is equipped with industry-leading pilot production lines, mini-factories, and other equipment, connecting the critical stages from concept validation to small-scale production, allowing out-of-the-box ideas to become testable, manufacturable products faster. It is reported that the first phase of the Xianning Innovation Institute involves a total investment of 200 million RMB. With its core function dedicated to serving R&D, it may seem somewhat "wasteful" and like something only "fools" would do, but it also provides the fundamental support for Genki Forest to empower young people to innovate boldly and dare to experiment.
From coming up with an idea to actually building it, and from building it to scaling it into a full-fledged product, there are countless attempts in between. To bring more "non-standard" niche products into testing and explore segmented markets, a robust R&D system capable of quickly turning ideas into reality is essential. After nearly a decade of exploration, Genki Forest has built a dual-core R&D system: anchored by R&D bases, powered by highly educated, young professional talent, and connected through agile, flexible team mechanisms—creating the foundational support for rapidly responding to needs and sustaining innovation.
Genki Forest is getting "heavier." Reports indicate that the company's seventh self-built factory is currently in the works. On the heavy-asset side, the cumulative total investment across the seven factories is nearly 8 billion RMB. On the heavy-R&D side, R&D centers in Beijing and Xianning operate as a dual-core system, with collaborative industry-academia-research platforms built with more than a dozen universities and research institutions nationwide. On the heavy-operations side, offline retail touchpoints have surpassed 1 million, covering over 800 cities across the country, with overseas markets continuing to expand. But it is precisely this heavy foundation that provides young people with the platform to showcase their creativity and the opportunity to pour their passion into what they love.
In the Beverage Industry's "Uncharted Territory," Doubling Down on R&D Provides Genki Forest's Answer
Against the trend toward healthier options, how can new-generation sugar substitutes satisfy consumers' dual desire for enjoyment and lower burden? In the context of emotional consumption, how can naturally derived coloring solutions deliver both natural appeal and stability in beverages? How can the fresh flavor of fruit be preserved to the greatest extent possible in industrial production? How can carbonated drinks solve the problem of high initial carbonation levels followed by a sharp decline in bubble release? One after another, these questions have no ready-made answers or established benchmarks for beverage industry professionals. In the "deep waters" of the beverage sector, Genki Forest has blazed its own trail, starting from scratch and consistently delivering Genki-style solutions.
At the "Creation Camp 2044" event, the Genki Forest Research Institute presented its R&D system and core technological achievements to the public for the first time in a systematic way. Four areas of technological breakthroughs and accumulated expertise—stable application of natural pigments, flash-freezing freshness preservation at -196°C, slow fermentation of fresh hawthorn, and dynamic regulation of bubble release—demonstrated in detail how Genki Forest achieves the ultimate experience of a beverage across color, aroma, taste, and balance through R&D and improvements in ingredients, processes, and formulations. At the event, Wang Xuegang, dean of the Genki Forest Research Institute, shared the original intention behind the R&D efforts: "A great-tasting drink can't do without color, aroma, and flavor. Our core goals for screening and testing non-artificial colorants, improving aroma extraction methods, and advancing liquid nitrogen freezing technology are all to make beverages look more natural, smell more pleasant, and taste more satisfying—so that everyone can enjoy healthier, better-tasting drinks."
Genki Forest founder Tang Binsen said: "Many great things in the world didn't look as great as outsiders imagined at the beginning; they started as simple, rough ideas. Creation Camp 2044 isn't a launch event—it's a documentation event. It's about recording these earliest moments of simplicity and purity. Recording original intentions and simplicity, recording what every one of us is capable of."