Tag Archives: CMC

Chinese industrial food recipes

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Producers of food ingredients will be very familiar with the general applications of their ingredients in foods and beverages. However, what do you know about their application in traditional Chinese foods, or novel foods based on traditional recipes? The transformation of the production processes and formulations of traditional Chinese foods into large scale commercial production is probably the most interesting challenge to suppliers of food ingredients worldwide.

Eurasia Consult has been active in the Chinese market for food ingredients since 1985, and in the course of our activities we have built up a substantial database of industrial recipes. This information can be used in market research, but also constitutes a mine of information for international suppliers of food ingredients to broaden the scope of existing ingredients and develop new products.

In this post, I am providing a few examples of the most promising application areas: novel foods, in particular those based on local products, traditional foods adapted for modern industrial production and ingredients based on traditional Chinese medicinal herbs.

The recipes are provided as found in the various sources. They are not ready to reproduce recipes, but provide insight in the perception of food formulation in China.

Novel

The Chinese love experimenting, as you can see on the Trends section of this blog. A consequence of this trial and error mentality for product innovation is that the route between idea and prototype is usually considerably shorter in China than in Europe. Novel products are often tested by throwing them on the market to see how consumers react.

Combined with other traits of Chinese culture, like playfulness, curiosity, etc., makes that more peculiar products are launched in China than in any other market in the world. Our favourite is still this one: ‘yoghurt to cure hangovers’. However, in this post I prefer to show a more common product.

Instant maize noodles

MaizeNoodles

Ingredient ratio(%)
Maize flour 75 – 90
Modified potato starch 10 – 25
Gluten powder 1 – 3
Monoglyceride ester 0.4 – 1
Xanthan 0.3 – 0.7

Traditional

In several earliers posts, I introduced the transformation of traditional Chinese foods into products manufactured at an economical scale. Chinese food designers have grown very apt in creating new variations adding extra value to such traditional products. A related trend is to create new foods from typical locally cultivated fruits, vegetables, etc. Local food specialties used to be a source of pride in China, but in the course of the ‘modernisation’ these traditions became rather suppressed.

Local governments have regained interest in these products recently and many of them are even applying a kind of DOC status for their typical local specialties, prohibiting manufacturers from other regions using that product name, like the term ‘champagne’ in France.

Improver for steamed bun (mantou) flour

MantouProd

Mantou used to be made at home, using a piece of the previous dough to start the fermentation process. Mantou have started to be produced on an industrial scale recently, which has created a demand for specialized flour improvers for this application, with enzymes as the main active ingredients.

Ingredient parts
Calcium stearoyl lactate 30-50
Monoglyceride 10-20
Vitamin C 6-10
Fungal alpha-amylase 0.6-1.2
Xylanase 2-3
Alkaline buffer 12.5-18.75

TCM

Food and medicine have never been as closely separated in China as in the Western tradition. Virtually all food and food ingredients are attributed certain medicinal activities in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Against this background, it is not so hard to imagine why the notion ‘functional food’ was accepted so quickly and smoothly in China: it was not really a novel concept for the Chinese. Actually, a number of fashionable functional foods in Europe, like Gingko, originate from Asia. As soon as ‘functional ingredients’ established themselves as a separate and lucrative category, medicine companies started to promote extracts from TCMs as food ingredients.

Chrysanthenum honeysuckle icecream

honeysuckle

Ingredient Dosage (%)
Whole milk powder 7
Crystal sugar 13
Margerine 10
Glutinous rice meal 3
Gelatin 0.3
CMC 0.3
Sucrose ester 0.05
Monoglycerine 0.1
Chrysanthemum extract 15
Honeysuckle extrac 5

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.

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The Chinese sense of strawberries – candy among fruits

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On this Valentine Day, it is appropriate to post something about what probably is one of the most romantic fruits: the strawberry. It’s hard to imagine why the apple is the “forbidden fruit” of lore, when the voluptuous and fragile strawberry is so much more tempting. Strawberries are temptingly red and sweet. The are an all time favourite flavour for ice cream, candy, cake, pie and other sweet treats.

3,449,000 mt of strawberries in 2020; up 5.3%. Moreover, higher production of fresh strawberries will back further development of the strawberry processing sector in the country. It is estimated that China’s frozen strawberry production will increase by 15% year-on-year to 150,000 mt. Beijing’s Changping region is a major strawberry producing region in China.

The 7th International Strawberry Symposium was held in Beijing in 2012. The following video gives an impression.

Strawberries are regarded as a delicacy. Hence, each strawberry is treated with extreme care in China. The following picture shows how a grower wraps each single strawberry separately.

As regards exports, China’s fresh strawberry exports are insignificant due to high shipping costs. The following table shows the Chinese exports of frozen strawberries during the past few years

Year Exports (mt)
2020 (1-10) 5594.6
2019 3678.2
2018 2584.4
2017 2283.0
2016 1575.4

These figures show a steady growth.

For imports, only less recent figures are available.

Year imports (mt)
2014 7,131
2013 8,076
2012 7,429
2011 5,511
2010 8,276

There seems to be no clear proportion between imports and exports.

The following video is less slick than the one shown above, but gives a direct insight in a Chinese diced strawberry plant.

Strawberry as ingredient

Strawberries are rarely used by the food and beverage industry as whole fruits. They are usually processed into powder, jam, pulp, etc. While such products are mainly supplied to industrial clients, Youlian Food (Longhai, Fujian) also markets its freeze dried strawberry powder in 50 gr packages to consumers that like to bake strawberry flavoured cakes.

Youlian

The Food Ingredients China (FIC) trade fair, March 23 – 25, 2016, included 6 exhibitors with strawberry-derived ingredients.

Ingredient number
Juice 3
Powder 2
Frozen 1

I have shown an example of a strawberry flavoured milk beverage in an earlier post. In this post, I will list a few other examples of strawberry flavoured foods and drinks. Also see the vinegar strawberries in my post on vinegar-based foods and beverages.

Meijing brand Strawberry sugar free candy

CandyTuoyuan

Meijing Food Co., Ltd., Shanghai

Ingredients:

strawberry powder, additives (liquid maltitol, citric acid, food flavour, acesulfame-K, ponceau 4R colour).

Although strawberry powder is used, both colour and flavour require enhancement with additives.

Laobute Strawberry Flaky Pastry

Laobute

Quanjia Food Co., Ltd., Beijing

Ingredients:

Crust: wheat flour, butter, food additives(maltitol, xylitol(2%)), eggs, skimmed milk powder.

Filling: wax gourd, additives (maltitol), strawberry pulp, veg oil, water.

The interesting aspect of this recipe is that wax gourd (donggua) is used to create a fruity mouth feel, which is apparently not accomplished by the strawberry pulp by itself.

Mengniu Strawberry Milk

MengniuStrMilk

Mengniu Dairy, Huhhot, Inner Mongolia

Ingredients:

water, fresh milk, coconut milk, crystal sugar, HFCS, strawberry cubes, food additives (CMC, citric acid, lactic acid, sodium citrate, aspartame, sodium cyclamate), food flavour

This is a good example of a Chinese formulated dairy drink in which milk is but one of the many ingredients. The brand name Zhen Guoli translates as ‘Real Strawberry Cubes’. That may be true, but it is a far cry from real milk.

The following two pictures show a few strawberry flavoured foods on the Chinese market in 2022. The first is a mix of products and the second shows exclusively strawberry milk. Real strawberries may not be used in all these products, obviously.

 

Funny combinations

Chinese can come up with funny combinations of flavours. Baozang launched a Cheese Strawberry drinking yoghurt late 2019. An influencer praises the combination of the ‘fermenting cheese flavour and the sweetness of the strawberries’. Why not?

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.

Do novel foods reflect an individualisation trend in Chinese culture?

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Chinese demographers estimate that China will have 92 mln singles in 2021

Yili Dairy, China’s top dairy brand (and second food brand in 2014), based in the capital of Inner Mongolia, Huhhot, has launched remarkable marketing campaigns for some of its popular products. Mengniu, located in the same city, has followed suit.

Oat milk

Breakfast milk is; another member of the expanding Chinese family of formulated dairy products. Yili has entered this market with Oat Milk.

The phenomenon breakfast milk is a product of the increasing of the pace of life in China. From the beginning of the Chinese nation to very recent times, three hot meals a day were sacred in China. Gobbling down a sandwich on your way to work, a familiar sight in my home region, would abhor any Chinese. That thing with the sandwich is still rare in China, but the quick ready-made breakfast is emerging.

The ad for Oat Milk shows Taiwanese singer Eddy Peng drinking (well, at least one end of the straw is in his mouth and the other in a carton of Oat Milk) striking a masculine pose. The text introduces him as a nanshen ‘male god’. Although Chinese women are just as attracted to males like this as their sisters in any other part of the world, such direct sexual remarks are rather un-Chinese. And I am not talking about post 1949 China. Han Chinese are usually rather reserved about this type of emotions.

Eddy

The text adds that male gods are busy chasing their ideals, but impeded by the hardship of work. I have translated the Chinese word ouxiang ‘icon’ here as ideal. It alludes that Peng is the male icon of many Chinese men, but also an object of worship for most women.

The Oat Milk slogan is: four special functions:

OatMilk

Overtime Miracle

Travel Mate

Slimming Success

Ideal Snack

Overtime has entered China already a while ago. China is one of the few nations the constitution of which includes the right to rest for all citizens. However, overtime now seems to be more normal than in many Western countries. What Yili seems to be suggesting is that its Oat Milk can be used to replace the meal that a proper employer would provide to staff members who agree to overtime. A carton of milk with chunks of oat floating in it, that you can consume while continuing to work, would until recently never be accepted. Now, the marketers of Yili seem to believe that this suggestion will no longer elicit protests.

The Chinese term lütu banlü has been coined after kafei banlü Coffee Mate. However, the latter is a powder that is much easier (and again quicker) to use than liquid coffee creamer. Oat Milk is a liquid that you are advised through this ad to carry with you while travelling. A quick bite/sip on the road. Once more, this suggested use is a replacement of the meal that Chinese travellers would usually not be willing to skip. Chinese travellers board a train heavily packed, not with clothes, but food and drinks to consume while chatting with their companions and enjoying the landscape.

Both functions seem to indicate that the pace of life is accelerating in China. One of the cultural rituals affect most strongly by this development is that of eating three warm meals a day.

The oat fibre in Oat Milk is said to help keeping your waist slim. That by itself would not be much more than an empty promise, but the picture of a man Eddy Peng makes it real. Drink Yili Oat Milk and look like Eddy Peng.

The word ‘snack’ in my translation of the final term refers to the Chinese concept of lingshi. It literally means ‘fragmentary food’, food that you can eat any time between meals. When you look at the scope of what is regarded as lingshi by Chinese it seems to be basically identical to xiuxian shipin ‘leisure food’, about which I have devoted an entire post in this blog. Lingshi then seems to be a more colloquial term, while xiuxian shipin is used in a more commercial context. Why it is called ideal seems obvious: as you are snacking anyway, you might as well do it on healthy food. However, I wonder if people would be willing to pack a relatively heavy carton of beverage instead of that pack of melon seeds, preserved plums or other traditional snacks.

Regardless whether Yili’s Oat Milk will be a success or a failure, its ad already is making history.

So, what’s in it? Here is the ingredients list:

Fresh milk, water, crystal sugar, oat grains, oat meal, Vit. A, Vit. D3, iron (fe edta), zinc, food additives (microcrystalline cellulose, CMC, gellan gum, carrageenan, monoglyceride,sucrose ester, sodium bicarbonate), food flavour.

So it is not completely natural, but we would not have expected it to be to begin with.

In the course of 2018, Yili has launched another oat milk, this time flavoured with coconut, marketed under the Guliduo (‘Lots of Cereals’) brand. It is said be made of Vietnamese coconut, carefully selected milk and Australian oat.

You Yoghurt

Yili has hired the services of another Tainwanese star, Jack Chou, to advertise for one of its yoghurt ranges: You Yoghurt (you means ‘best’). Jack Chou is shown sitting in a director’s chair, shouting ‘I want You’. The scene is derived from the TV program Voice of China.

YiliYouAd

Note that the makers of this ad assume that the intended audience have a command of English sound enough to recognise the pun. The deeper reference to the old American military posters telling young American men that ‘Uncle Sam wants you’ will escape the attention of most of them, though.

Expressing love through French fries

Early 2020, McDonald’s contracted the young superstar Jackson Yee, another male young god, not as their icon, but as their ‘spokesperson (daiyanren)’ for its advertisements. Af first sight, it seemed like yet another good looking young guy trying to sell food. However, some of the ads are quite funny, although I’m not sure if they were designed to be funny. My favourite is the ad for Mickey D’s famous French fries, which includes the slogan: ‘every single fry tastes of love‘.

Winter Olympics

Yili is one of the first Chinese food companies to respond to Beijing’s winning of the Winter Olympics in 2022. The company has launched the following commercial:

YiliOlymp

The text reads: ‘I have a seven-year appointment with the Olympic Games‘. And again we see the emerging individualism in this frame. The lonely icehockey player, instead of a team and the use of ‘I’ instead of ‘we’.

It is fascinating to see how a traditional state owned enterprise is able to reinvent itself to fit into the 21st Century. According to the Rabobank survey, Yili now ranks among the world’s 20 largest dairy companies.

Yoghurt icecream

Mengniu, China’s second largest dairy company, has recently launched one of China’s first yoghurt icecreams, marketed under the Dilan brand. The company started the promotion campaign with handing out samples for free to white collar workers in Beijing’s major commercial buildings. Dilan’s ads also indicate that the product is geared to that market segment: the individualist young professionals focused on their careers.

DailanYoghIce

Ambrosial

Yili’s has launched another innovative marketing campaign for its latest range of formulated dairy products, marketed under the brand name Ambrosial, in early 2020. This product’s ads can be divided in three types. The first is linking the brand with famous athletes, singers or movie stars.

The second type tries to link the brand to several symbols of modern life.

The third is more abstract, linking the brand to a number of goods pointing at good taste and healthy living and a human arm grasping a bottle of Ambrosial.

Ingredients:

Fresh milk, crystal sugar, whey protein powder, addives (acetylated distarch phosphate, pectin, agar, diacetyl tartaric acid ester of mono(di)glycerides, gellan, food flavours), lactobacillus bulgaricus, streptococcus thermophilus.

Single-portion milk

Here we see a trend towards individualisation expressed in the packaging as well. Some Chinese hate milk, a few like it, and many drink a glass a day for its healthy image. If there is only one milk drinker in a household of, say, four, milk can easily spoil before finishing your 1 litre bottle or UHT pack. Xiajin (Ningxia) has launched a 243 ml bottle of milk to solve this problem in 2019. It is interesting to note that it is not one of the top dairy processors like Yili, Mengniu or Bright that first launch milk in individual portions, but Xiajin, that has been a good second tier dairy company for several decades.

Tea for one

A group of friends chatting for hours around a table with not much more than a pot of tea and a tray of melon seeds is still a very common sight in China. However, the first brand of tea presented in small bags for a single cup has appeared on the market. The term ‘independent’ in ad for this Chicory and Gardenia Tea by Qiandaohu (Hangzhou, Zhejiang) leaves nothing to the imagination.

Male vs Female

Yet another product of Yili is a lactic acid beverage branded Changyi that is marketed as being beneficial to the ‘male spirit’ (nanshen). Most of Yili’s new ads introduced above use male bodies as icons for position various dairy products. This product takes this trend one step further by directly referring to the male spirit.

Changyi

Mengniu has launched a sweetened milk, Tianxiaohai, that comes in separate female (pink) and male (blue) packagings

MnFemPack  MnMalePack

However, the ingredients are exactly the same; no gender-related formulation.

Fresh milk (>= 80%), sugar, additives (sucrose ester, monoglyceride, carrageenan), flavour

Uni-president has launched a series of flavoured consisting of two flavours in 2020. The packaging of both includes the phrase ‘his & hers’. However, although it is not indicated which flavour is his and which hers, one pack is blue and the other red, consistent with the cross-cultural mainstream bias that ‘blue is for boys’ and ‘pink is for girls’.

No sharing with others

Specialists in national culture all agree that Chinese culture is collectivist, placing the group’s interests above that of the individual. This trait of Chinese culture has left a huge mark on the Chinese practice of eating and drinking, in which sharing is a key concept. A Chinese meal is typically eaten around a round table with all dishes placed in the middle, for all participants to share. An now, in 2016, Yili launches this ad.

YiliWangpai

The ad is for Weikezi Chocolate Milk and the boy is saying: ‘Weikezi is delicious, no way I’m going to share it with you’. That statement sounds outrageously un-Chinese. So, is this a sign that young Chinese are becoming more individualist, or is this ad perhaps meant to provoke? I am sure it will make more than few Chinese eyebrows rise.

The ultimate individualisation: one person hot pot

Hot pot is a hot item in China. Nothing beats a group of people around a table throwing chunks of meat, vegetables, bean curd, mushrooms, or virtually any other fresh ingredient in a pot with boiling water and fishing them up when they are cooked. Hot pot is the ultimate communitarian food for a communitarian nation like the Chinese. Even a European fondue is hard to imagine to enjoy on your own, right? Well, be prepared to see this fact shattered by exactly those extremely communitarian Chinese. The past year has witnessed the launching of a number of one-person instant hot pots.

On the outside they look like a big instant noodle cups. Inside you will find a variety of ingredients, like the classic hot pot. Just heat it in the microwave, open it, and enjoy . . . on your own. Some brands are even packed in self-heating packagings. Squeezing the pack will create a chemical reaction that will heat up your hot pot, so you even lose the microwave. I have collated pictures of a couple of the instant hot pots currently on the market. How does it taste? Probably like most instant foods. Is it fun? Not more than eating instant noodles, or instant congee, certainly not as fun as enjoying hot pot with a group of friends or your relatives.

   

Single dog noodles

Early 2018, entrepreneur Zeng Ruilu founded Single Dog, a company producing potato crisps and similar snacks in single portions, geared to the growing group single Chinese. This company launched a range of single portions instant noodles in 2019. Smart readers will say: ‘aren’t all instant noodles made for one person to eat?’. You are right, of course, but Single Noodles (Danshenliang) still caught on. While Chinese singles used to be single for specific reasons (like a shy nature), more and more Chinese remain single for a while by choice. Those people like to confirm this by snacking on food that is specially made for them.

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.

Babao Porridge – food that enlightens

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Babao Porridge (Babaozhou, Babaofan), a sweet rice porridge stuffed with dates, lotus seeds and other fruits, is an extremely interesting example of a traditional product revived by industrial production. The concept of babao is used in more traditional foods, e.g. zongzi, filled steamed rice cubes wrapped in leaves, which are introduced in a separate post of this blog.

Image             Image

Present day Babao Porridge is derived from a southern type of porridge called Laba Porridge. La refers to the La month, the last month of the lunar calendar and ba (‘eight’) to the eighth day of that month. On the 8th day of the lunar 12th month people used to prepare a porridge using eight or more ingredients to celebrate the end of the year. Another story explains the custom as a Buddhist tradition.

Laba porridge was first cooked as a sacrifice for ancestors and gods during Laba Festival as a part of winter worship. In an agricultural society, the 12th month or layue (腊月) was a time when families consumed some of their stores from the harvest season. Cooking a porridge with rich and varied ingredients is a way to celebrate a prosperous harvest for the year, in hopes of a better one to follow.

Just like Christmas overtaking the ancient Roman holiday of Saturnalia, when Buddhism arrived in China, it stamped its own influence on this local tradition. For Buddhists, Laba Festival is also Buddha’s Enlightenment Day.

The legend says that Shakyamuni, after 6 years of seeking enlightenment by living frugally, once sat down under a tree, dead tired. A woman herding cows saw him and prepared a simple porridge for him using course cereals and wild fruits. Shakyamuni was so revived from eating a bowl of that porridge, that he immediately gained enlightenment. From that day on, Buddhist Temples prepared a similar type of porridge on the 8th of each 12th month.

With the increasing pace of life, modern Chinese are less and less willing to spend several hours a day in the kitchen. This includes less frequently prepared foods like Babao Porridge.

The basic production process is easy enough. The raw materials are mixed and cooked, cooled and then packed in cans, similar to those used to pack soft drinks. In this way, the porridge can be easily consumed as a convenient food, while travelling, as a snack during office work, etc. A plastic spoon is usually attached to the can, so the traveller does need to pack a metal spoon from the kitchen either.

Buddhist monestaries have to abide by the law as well, so more and more temples are producing laba porridge in a semi-industrialised clean way, to ensure that the faithful do not have to pay dearly for enjoying a bowl of laba porridge with food poisening. On the way, it earns the monestary a lot more income as well.

Formulation

The most essential aspect of the production of Babao Porridge is the combination of emulsifiers and thickeners. Babao Porridge consists of a viscous liquid part and solid parts. Manufacturers need to formulate the product in such a way, that the solid parts are more or less evenly distributed over the liquid part upon opening of the can.

A number of Chinese manufacturers of emulsifiers and thickeners supply products specially formulated for Babao Porridge. Some sources propagate CMC as the most appropriate thickener for this application.

A combination of CMC and a low calorie high intensity sweetener to replace the sugar will not only provide an authentic mouthfeel, but also decrease the caloric value.

Industrial recipes for so called ‘low calorie Babao Porridge,’ proposed by manufacturers of ingredients use sticky rice as the macro-ingredient, where part of the rice can be replaced with pumpkin. Various combinations of fruits (dates are most popular) and nuts (including peanuts) are added. Frequently suggested micro-ingredients and additives: pumpkin powder, xylitol, oligoxylose, CMC, konjac powder, and EDTA.

As a result of all the recent food safety problems, Chinese consumers have become more aware of ingredients and started asking if one food really needs so different ingredients. A recent article (24/9/2014) criticises the use of xanthan in one brand of Babao Porridge. Xanthan is known in the porridge industry under the nickname zhoubao, literally: ‘porridge treasure’. The reporter believes it is a means to hide the lack of skills of the manufacturer to produce a proper porridge.

Top brands

The following brands are recognised as China’s top brands for Babao porridge

Yinlu   PorrYinlu

The Yinlu Food Group was established in Xiamen (Fujian) in 1985 as producer of canned food and beverages. It is still one of China’s top producers of protein drinks. It now operates production units in Shandong, Hubei, Anhui and Sichuan. Nestlé has acquired a controlling stake in Yinlu, nut has announced that it intends to sell that stake again early 2020.

Wahaha   PorrWahaha

The Wahaha Group was established in Hangzhou (Zhejiang) in 1987 as a private company operated by a school, producing tonic for school children. The founder and CEO, Mr. Zong Qinghou, is currently one of China’s richest entrepreneurs. Wahaha has 150 subsidiaries in all regions of China, employing 30,000 people. It ranks among China’s top 500 companies in 2014 It is a relatively new player in this market, but has rapidly risen to this position. The range includes a babao porridge sweetened with xylitol. Wahaha has started a new campaign for its canned porridge range in January 2015, stressing that the company is being loyal to the Chinese tradition of porridge making. The following picture says that Wahaha’s Babao Porridge ‘tastes just like mother used to cook it’

WahahPorr

Wahaha has launched another type of nutritious Babao Porridge mid 2018, under the Qingzhi brand.

Ingredients:

Koji, plant sterols, sugar, glutenous rice, barley kernels, red beans, maltitol, black rice, peanuts, red kidney beans, hulless barley, tremella, lecithin, sucrose ester, fatty acids, sodium tri-polyphosphate, acesulfame-k, EDTA-2Na, sucralose, water

Qinqi   PorrQinqi

Based in Guangzhou (Guangdong), Qinqi was the first in China to launch Babao porridge in cans, which created the market for ready to drink Babao porridge. Although no longer the number one brand, Qinqi still bears the honorary name ‘porridge king’.

Qinqin   PorrQinqin

This brand is owned by the Xinxin Food Group, established in Yangzhou (Jiangsu) in 1991, by a local factory and a Taiwan investor. It produces a range of convenience foods, including Babao porridge.

Tongfu   PorrTongfu

The name of the producer, Tongfu Bowl Porridge Co., Ltd., betrays that it is dedicated to producing exactly that: porridge in (plastic) bowls. Tongfu was the first to introduce this type of packaging in China. It is considerably lighter than the canned version. It is located in Wuhu (Anhui)

Corona was good for Babao porridge

Babao porridge sales went through the ceiling during the first quarter of 2020, when the entire Chinese nation went into quarantine at home. It turned out to be the ideal corona food, besides instant noodles and other packed fast foods.

More nutritious and high end

Babao porridge entered the high end sector in 2022, when Huangxiaozhu launched its series of zero sugar low fat nutritious babao porridge. Flavours included coconut-water chestnut and and black sesame – taro. The packaging was also inspired by the ongoing nationalist trend (guochao).

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation. He is a co-author of a major book introducing the cultural drivers behind China’s economic success.