In the turbulent and increasingly diversified Chinese beverage market, sugar-free and low-fat have become the choices of more and more consumers. The following picture is taken from an influencer promoting ‘clean label’ products. However, official food and beverage labelling has only just started in China. As you can see, this influencer follows international practice.
Nutrition information (100 gr): energy 174 kjoules; protein: 4.4 gr; fat: 1.4 r; carbohydrates: 2.8 gr; sodium: 7 mg.
Ingredients: potable water, black beans, black rice, sesame.
According a recent survey, the market size of China’s sugar-free beverage industry has increased from RMB 2.26 billion in 2015 to 19.96 billion in 2022, and is expected to reach RMB 61.56 billion in 2025. In addition, according another survey, 75% of consumers believe that health is a focus issue in choosing which beverages to buy. In addition to taste, ingredients have become one of the most important beverage purchase considerations for consumers.
To meet the needs of consumers and guide them to make healthier decisions, projects for beverage grading have been proposed. Recently, Shanghai has started the first batch of pilot projects for the grading of ‘nutritional choice’ for beverages, and mainstream brands such as Naixue tea and Bawang Chagee tea have been selected as the first objects for testing, which has caused heated discussions in the industry.
Beverage grading
As the name suggests, beverage grading is the classification and rating of beverages based on certain criteria. These criteria usually include the ingredients, texture, taste, etc., of the beverage. The ‘Nutritional Choice’ grading piloted in Shanghai is based on the content of non-dairy sugar, saturated fat, transfat and non-sugar sweeteners in beverages, and comprehensively classifies beverages through four grades from A to D, in decreasing order. This allows consumers to make more rational consumption choices.
According to Shanghai Centre of Disease Control, the ‘Nutritional Choice’ beverage classification method mainly refers to domestic and foreign standards, and the full indication ‘Nutritional Choice’ can be used in various contexts, such as beverage packaging, ordering procedures, and menus. The classification of a beverage’s grade depends on its ‘shortcomings’. For example, if a beverage has a sugar content of C, saturated fat and transfat of A and no added non-sugar sweeteners, the beverage will be classified as C.
Singapore as example
In December 2022, the Singaporian government began to officially implement a classification policy for prepackaged beverages in the retail market, which also used four grades according to the sugar content and saturated fat content: A, B, C, and D. ‘A class (dark green)’, ‘B class (light green)’, ‘C class (yellow)’, ‘D class (red)’. Grade A means that sugar content and saturated fat are the lowest, and grade D represents the highest content. In addition to packaged beverages, all kinds of handmade beverages such as freshly squeezed juice and milk tea will also be labeled in this way soon. The labeling is the responsibility of the manufacturer, importer or distributor.
It is understood that milk tea brands like Nai Xue, Bawang Chagee, Happy Lemon, and Hangzhou Leyuan are the first batch of brands to try out the ‘nutritional choice’ classification. On March 27, Naixue’s Shanghai stores and ordering outlets fully implemented the ‘Nutritional Choice’ logo, and Naixue’s ready-to-drink (RTD) products were also superscripted with the ‘Nutritional Choice’ logo. The data show that Naixue’s tea freshly made drinks and RTD bottled beverage products are mostly concentrated in the A and B grade ranges, with obvious health attributes and high recommended values. It is worth mentioning that after the introduction of the ‘Nutritional Choice’ label, the number of consumers choosing grades A and B has increased significantly.
As for Bawang Chagee, the medium-sized cup with less sugar is classified as B-grade, and the Oriental Iced Tea as A-grade. Bawang Chagee also emphasizes healthy sugar, promoting the choice of low GI foods (glycemic index less than 55), food GI value less than or equal to 55, are good choices, but this does not mean that the lower the GI value, the better. Tea lovers also need to choose according to their own situation to avoid falling into knowledge misunderstandings.
In addition, Zerup Zero Sugar Drink, Watsons Soda, Suntory Sugar-Free Oolong Tea, etc., are classified as Grade A, F&N Ice Cream Soda, Wahaha AD Calcium Milk are classified as Grade B, FairPrice Whole Milk, Nongfu Spring Brand Tea, Green Oolong Tea, Yuzu Green Tea, Coconut Palm Coconut Water, Benasong Coffee and other products are all classified as Grade C.
Future
The ‘Nutritional Choice’ classification has enabled the beverage industry to move towards a more professional and refined business. With the continuous promotion of the ‘grading system’, more brands may join the ranks in the future. This will also be extended to food. Compared to beverages, there are more types of foods, and the content and proportion of nutrients are more complex. For example, a food can be evaluated based on the content of key nutrients such as protein, fat, carbohydrates, dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals in the food. At the same time, the content of nutrients such as sodium and sugar that are not conducive to health in food can also be considered, so as to evaluate the nutritional value of food more comprehensively.
Chinese cuisine is one of the longest surviving culinary traditions in the world. The Chinese preference for pyrotechnics has made cooked food a dietary habit passed down from generation to generation. Cooked food not only has a higher safety, but also tends to stimulate a more pleasant sensory experience due to the colour and aroma produced by heating.
Latest raw products
However, in recent years, more and more domestic brands have begun to turn around and successively launched foods with the concept of ‘raw’ (sheng 生). Luckin Coffee first launched ‘raw coconut latte’ and ‘raw cheese latte’ and quickly became an explosive series.
Luckin Coffee ads promoting products containing ‘raw coconut’. Note that the word ‘raw’ does not appear in the English text
Raw cheese here refers to the use of very young cream cheese. For most Chinese consumers, ‘cheese’ was connotated with the processed cheese that was before that moment the typical cheese for sale in Chinese supermarkets.
Entering 2023, the concept of ‘raw’ food really took off. Starbucks launched a ‘Green Coffee Series’ featuring concentrated fruit juice mixed with green bean extract.
Pepsi launched the diet soda ‘Raw Coke’. Pepsi uses the term shengshuang ciji, literally ‘raw fresh stimulating’, indicating that consumers start linking the concept of raw to that of fresh and that it has an uplifting effect.
Manner Coffee launched draft beer latte (the Chinese word for draft beer, shengpi, includes the word ‘raw’. One influencer describes his first sip of this brew as follows: ‘The first bite is a little like the barley aroma in beer, but it is not very beery, it feels more milky, and it is a good latte, I like the milky taste in this one’.
The word raw squeezed (shengzha) is highlighted in red on the bottle to indicate that it is an important feature of this product.
Development
The first ‘raw’ foods were made with raw coconut. In 2021, the concept of ‘raw coconut’ became popular with the popular series of Luckin Raw Coconut Latte. Using cold-pressed raw coconut milk as the base and using the raw extraction process, the product retains the authentic taste of coconut meat and the rich coconut aroma.
‘Raw coconut’ generally refers to coconut milk, which is made by grinding mature coconut meat mixed with coconut water or water. Using ‘raw’ to describe fruit and vegetable categories, the public will always mentally connect this with fresh and natural, coupled with the sweeter and smoother taste characteristics of coconut milk, ‘raw coconut’ is more likely to be recognized and loved in the public’s sensory cognition.
Today, the concept of raw coconut is still a popular element of beverage innovation. According to incomplete statistics, in June and July 2023 alone, there were more than ten new products featuring raw coconut as a major ingredient.
Different from the classic pairing of raw coconut latte, many coffee brands have begun to combine ‘raw coconut’ with cold brew and Americano. For example, Tim’s launched Watermelon Raw Coconut Cold Brew, which uses fresh sweet watermelon juice with rich raw coconut milk. Heytea combines seasonal honey dew melon with raw coconut milk. Weiquan combines Indonesian coconut milk with small grain oats.
In recent years, Luckin has also carried out many innovations based on the raw coconut classic series, and successively launched new products such as Ice Absorbing Raw Coconut Latte and Touching Fish Raw Coconut Latte this year. The Iced Coconut Latte enhances the coconut aroma experience in a 2.0 plant-based formula infused with Luckin’s original cooling factor, while the Touching Fish Raw Coconut Latte adds konjac to it.
Touching Fish Raw Coconut Latte; the add indicates that the product contains no fat
In addition, the concept of ‘raw pressing’ has also begun to extend from the application of fruit and vegetable raw materials to tea processing. On June 4, Uni-President launched the Uni-President Chaguowang Gaoshan Raw Green Tea, advertised as: ‘one mouthful of raw pressing, double freshness’. The product combines fresh tea with the same amount of water, crushes at cell level to obtain raw fresh tea concentrate, and adopts nitrogen sealing, 70-90 °C high-temperature tea brewing and UHT technologies to restore the original taste of freshly brewed tea.
In October last year, Luckin launched a blockbuster new Raw Cheese Latte. The product combines classic New Zealand raw cheese (referring to immature cheese) with mellow milk and espresso, retaining the cheesy and slightly salty flavour, and presenting a cheesecake-like experience with a silky texture and rich milk aroma. After the success of the ‘raw cheese’ series, Luckin has successively launched Orange Flavoured Raw Cheese Latte and Tiramisu Love Cheese this year.
Luckin’s Raw Cheese Latte; Jojo is a comic strip figure. The ad includes a pun with that name Jo dengle = jiu deng le 久等了 (sorry to let you wait so long)
Today’s ‘raw cheese’ is generally made of cheese raw materials such as cream cheese and cheddar cheese with different degrees of fermentation with milk and coconut milk. Compared to the single salty cheese flavour, raw cheese provides a stronger cheese aroma, smoother blending with the drink, and a more recognizable flavour.
In addition to the application in coffee, the concept of ‘liquid cheese’ like raw cheese has gradually been applied to milk tea and fruit tea. In December last year, the first raw cheese series was launched on Chabaidao. For the first time, raw cheese was added to milk tea, and two classic cheese flavours, imported raw cheese from New Zealand and Denmark were blended to obtain a more layered cheese aroma.
In March this 2023, Naixue launched a new series of multi-fruit pulp Domineering Cheese, focusing on ‘fresh fruit’ and ‘milk base’, combining fresh pulp with raw buttermilk and raw buttermilk and raw buttermilk jelly, presenting a more chewy and more complex flavoured milk tea experience.
Naixue’s cherry blossom cheese tea
Novel, fun, raw and wild experience
Through cooking, processed food often loses the tart taste of the raw material itself, or generates new substances during the reaction process, obtaining new flavours and nutrition.
As the consumption environment and emotional experiences of food become more personalized, people begin to pursue more particular taste experiences at different levels, and the functional and nutritional demands of products are more segmented.
The concept of unpasteurized draft beer is not uncommon in China. Compared with pasteurized beer, draft beer is not sterilized at high temperature, and generally removes the remaining yeast and impurities in beer by diatomaceous earth filtration.
The flavour and freshness of draft beer are higher than that of pasteurize beer, and the bubbles are more abundant, and it often produces a stronger sense of tartness when drinking it from a can.
Pepsi’s raw cola is based on the treatment of draft beer, using a non-heating physical sterilization method different from traditional cola sterilization, preserving the aroma of spices in cola as much as possible and reducing the decomposition of carbon dioxide in cola.
Therefore, compared to ordinary Coke, PepsiCo’s bubble experience is more powerful, more exciting, and the flavour more refreshing. After being chilled, raw cola produces a stronger sense of raw and dry mouthfeel (see the illustration above).
This concept has also migrated to other types of beverage. In June this year, Manner launched the Aranya Theatre Festival Limited Draft Beer Latte, which pairs the aroma of malt beer with rich nutty coffee, borrowing the concept of ‘draft beer’ to bring consumers a novel coffee experience.
Manner Coffee’s Draf Beer Latte
In freshly ground coffee and packaged coffee, coffee beans are roasted and ground for a stronger coffee flavour and a higher caffeine content. However, with the development of coffee categories and changes in consumer demand, consumers’ demand for coffee is not limited to supplementing energy through caffeine, for example, people who are caffeine intolerant want to get a low-caffeine drinking experience.
In May this year, Starbucks launched a new generation of ‘Starbucks Raw Coffee’ series in China, with four types: Powdered Green Coffee, Powdered Lime Raw Coffee, Magic Purple Raw Coffee, and Mangzi Lime Raw Coffee. All products in this series are light caffeine drinks, extracted from raw Arabica green beans, blended with real juice and dried fruit. The caffeine content of a single cup is about 1/3 of the same cup of Americano.
On June 13, Starbucks China launched four new raw coffee series and then launched a new frost series. Based on the original green coffee series, the product and ice cubes are whipped into a soft frost to bring a summer frost experience.
Two recent Starbucks products
Japanese origin
Tracing the origins of the application of the concept of raw food in these categories, we can see that most of them originated from the Japanese food market, where raw food is an important part of the diet.
The relatively scarce supply of raw materials and the concept of living in accordance with nature have subtly cultivated the dietary preference and food culture of Japanese consumers towards raw food. The Japanese want to maximize the natural and fresh flavour and nutritional value of the ingredients themselves, as evidenced by the traditional Japanese diet of sashimi and raw soy sauce.
Since then, the concept of raw has gradually broadened to include ‘fresh’, ‘natural’ and ‘simple’. It has become a consumer attitude.
Take for example the raw chocolate that spread from Japan to China. Raw chocolate is made by adding fresh cream and other ingredients to melted chocolate, resulting in a silky, delicate product with a soft texture. This referred to as ‘Nama Chocolate’.
‘Nama’ (written with the same character 生) corresponds to the Japanese meaning of ‘fresh’ and ‘pure’, and originally means ‘fresh chocolate’. Because fresh cream (in Japanese: 生乳油 nama gyuyu) is added to the chocolate making process, it was rendered raw chocolate in Chinese.
The raw toast that has recently become hot in China is also a new baking category that has developed rapidly in the Japanese market. The earliest research and development concept for raw toast was to provide the elderly with a soft and chewable toast, and to provide more choices for children with egg allergies. Therefore, the original raw toast recipe did not add eggs but honey. The characteristics of raw toast are soft and dense, easy to bite off and melting in the mouth. The shelf life of this raw toast is only 1-2 days, which is in line with the concept of freshness, simplicity and purity in the concept of ‘raw’, even though there is nothing raw about it.
Traditional Chinese Dairy Products introduces products that entered Chinese cuisine from minority cuisines, in particular Mongolian and Western cuisines, especially strong in Guangdong. Traditional Chinese food recreated in milk focuses on the opposite: innovative dairy products inspired by traditional Chinese foods.
Formulated Milk Beverages points out how inventive Chinese food scientists are creating milk-based products that appeal to even the most traditional Chines palate.
Protein Drinks shows that plant-based milk alternatives are not a Western invention.
Dairy is obviously a central product in the Chinese food industry. In this post, I will introduce the developments in the past 1 – 2 years prior to the date of posting. I will include background information from the above mentioned posts, so you can read this post by itself, without having to click on those links all the time.
Tradition
China is not known as a traditional dairy nation. However, milk and dairy products have been an essential ingredient of the diets of a number of ethnic minorities. These products have been introduced in Chinese cuisine in areas where they mixed with those of Han Chinese. Especially the various dairy products made by Mongolians have been known by the Han in the Northern regions of China. The following pictures shows a Mongolian woman exhibiting a number of dairy products.
Some of the better known products are: milk bean curd (naidoufu), cheese (nailao), milk curds (naigeda) Most of the Mongolian products are solid and sweetened. In this way they keep longer. The cheese, e.g., looks more like toffees in shape, texture and flavour.
When Westerners started settling in China, they introduced their dairy products and also started producing some. This was first of all for their own consumption, but several Chinese who regularly interacted with them acquired a liking for some dairy products. Yoghurt was easy to accept, as it was suitable for consumption even by people with a lactose intolerance. Sweetened condensed milk was also liked and became the first domestically produced dairy product. In some regions, in particular Guangdong whose capital has been China’s main foreign trade port for centuries, Chinese developed a number of dishes with (sweetened condensed) milk as the main ingredient. Milk tea (naicha) and fried milk (zhanai) are best known in this category.
A number of companies have developed industrial processes for producing these traditional products. No need to introduce milk tea, as this rage has been exported to several Southeast Asian countries and even to some Western nations with a large number of ethnic Chinese.
Ruiyuan Dairy (Xinjiang) is producing naigeda on an industrial scale. The company has two patents for this new process. Some of the redesigned traditional dairy products have little in common anymore with the original thing. A good example is the industrially produced naisu (‘milk crisps’) by Duoweier Bioengineering (Chifeng, Inner Mongolia). The ingredients list is quite impressive, but has nothing to do with the traditional product:
The effect of the long ingredients list is softened by the Mongolian symbols on the packaging: a girl in traditional attire pouring milk and the yurts in the background.
History
The development of the modern Chinese dairy industry can be roughly divided in three stages:
1949-1998; a period of gradual growth;
1999-2008; period of rapid growth. Since 1999, the development of China’s dairy industry has entered the “golden decade”, and the demand for dairy products increased rapidly. That of the liquid milk market grew with an average of 60% per year. However, the weak spot in the value chain was milk collection between dairy farms and the dairy processers. This led to the famous ‘melamine incident’ in 2008.
2009-present; It took a major effort for the domestic dairy industry to regain the confidence of Chinese consumers, but it succeeded a few years ago and the industry is growing reasonably well.
Current situation
Although the dairy stock is showing a continuous decline, it does not affect the milk production, because the milk per cow is increasing. China’s raw milk production reached 39.32 mln tons in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 6.77%.
Also in 2022, the per capita dairy consumption of Chinese consumers increased to 24.36 kg/ person/year, a year-on-year increase of 0.74% compared with 2021. The volume of 2015 was 21.41 kg/person/year.
Dairy is regarded as a major source of nutrition by the Chinese government. It is therefore strongly promoted. Chinese consumers also perceive milk and dairy products as a major source of nutrition, in particular for young children. Dairy is placed in the second tier in the current Chinese nutrition tree (pagoda in Chinese).
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, The total volume of dairy products in 2022 was 31.177 mln mt, up 2.84%. Liquid milk accounted for 93.79% of this volume. It was followed by milk powder, accounting for 3.23%. Half of the latter was infant formula; the other half consisting of a wide range of powders for various consumer segments. The remaining 2.98% consists of various products, like: yoghurt, butter, cheese, condensed milk, cream, ice cream, etc.
A2 milk
The Chinese market for A2 milk is growing rapidly. At a time when the birth rate is declining, A2 Milk Company reportedly does very well with double-digit growth in revenue and profit. The company’s financial report for the first half of 2023 shows that early infant milk powder sales reached NZ$ 270.7 mln, an increase of 43.5% year-on-year. Liquid milk sales in China and other Asian regions also increased by 34.6% to NZ$ 7.5 mln. Revenue from other nutritional products also increased by 83.7% to NZ$ 17.8 mln.
Culturally, Chinese are susceptible for ‘rare healthy products’. Chinese influencers are generally positive about A2 milk powder. Discussions among specialists show more varied opinions. Many experts doubt whether A2 milk is really worth the premium price.
Other milk sources
Milk comes from cows. This is so well known that the standard Chinese word for ‘milk’ is niunai ‘cow milk’. Milk from other sources is also available. Of these, goat milk is large enough to influence the total milk supply. Other sources have sprung up in recent years, which come in small quantities and have a more fancy image.
Goat milk has the image of being slightly easier to digest that cow milk. It has been around for longer in China. The main production regions, Shandong, Shaanxi and Yunnan do not form a geographic cluster. It is more a matter of local tradition than climate or geological conditions. The value of goat milk market in 2020 was RMB 10.4 billion; up 3.9% compared to 2019. Approximately 30% of the goat milk powder consumed in 2020 was imported.
Camel milk is on the rise in China, but quantities are small. China produced 18,200 mt of camel milk in 2021, a little more than in the previous year. In 2020, 11.7% was used for producing ice cream, 20.7% for camel milk powder, 8.6% for fermented products, 4.2% for others and the remaining was consumed as liquid milk.
South China produces small quantities of water buffalo milk and Inner Mongolia small quantities of horse milk.
Plant based milk
This is a big product category in China. in 2022, 22.4% of the Chinese population suffered from lactose intolerance. Vegetable protein drinks are regarded as a good alternative. The total turnover 2021 was RMB 123.4 bln, 10.47% higher than the previous year.
The nomenclature has changed with the coming and going of fashions. Protein drinks (danbai yinliao) was the first name and is still widely used. With the growing influence from the Western vogue for milk alternatives, the term nai (milk) was introduced and gained some hold. This change of term made it easier to let these products (or better, their producers) cash in on the healthy image of milk and dairy.
A broad range of plants is used to produce protein drinks: soybeans, almonds, walnuts, coconuts, peanuts, hickory, sesame, rice, oat. Soybean drinks are the oldest and remain the largest category.
China’s top dairy companies have adopted an ‘if you can’t beat them’ strategy. Mengniu and Yili, the top 2, have launched their own protein beverages recently. Yili announced its plans during a public meeting at the end of 2014. Mengniu has entered into a joint venture with US-based WhiteWave Foods Company, a leading consumer packaged food and beverage company in North America and Europe early 2013. The JV is marketing WhiteWave’s Silk brand protein drinks in China. This product is common in the US and is an affiliate of Alpro, a brand in Europe, though its positioning in China is quite unique. With its convergence of flavours, Silk’s positioning as a 100% natural solution, targeting those that are lactose intolerant, could spell success for Silk in China, especially as consumers become ever more sceptical regarding the origin, nutrition, safety and environmental impact of the food and beverages they buy.
Cheese
Cheese consumption is increasing at an incredible speed during the past few years, considering that not so long ago, almost all Chinese were abhorred about the smell of cheese. Cheese supply volume in China has surged from 140,000 mt to 270,000 mt during the period 2017-2022. This figure is expected to maintain double-digit growth, far above the world average for the coming years.
Although the average cheese consumption in China is far below many Western countries as well as Japan and Korea, it has significantly increased from 80g/person/year in 2017 to 130g/person/year in 2021. At the 2022 China Cheese Development Summit Forum, the Dairy Association of China released an action plan, proposing that the national cheese production would reach 500,000 mt by 2025. Much of the cheese sold in China is processed, but non-processed is increasing.
An interesting development is that Chinese cheese producers are focusing on developing one-bite cheese snacks, for all ages, but in particular for children. This is partly a result of the pressure of the Chinese authorities to increase dairy consumption among children. Such products include cheese sticks, cheese slices, cheese strips, etc. Cheese stick is the most popular one, which was first launched by Milkana, but was popularized by Milkground. Presently, promoted by the increasingly intensive market competition, dairy enterprises have rolled out a wide range of cheese sticks with distinctive features. Apart from various funny shapes, including ‘cheese lollies’, they are also experimenting with flavours. Here is an ad of Milkana strawberry flavoured cheese sticks.
A new cheese stick brand, Cheespirit, launched a series of innovative products on May 28, 2023: ‘Vegetable & Fruit Growing Up Cheese Sticks’. The company claims to have selected 8 kinds of ‘super vegetables and fruits’ to create high-calcium and high-VC cheese sticks, containing 3% dietary fiber. The calcium is 100% milk calcium, with a 1.8:1 calcium-phosphorus ratio. The product contains 40% whey protein, as well as algal oil DHA and various trace elements derived from vegetables and fruits, providing nutrients such as protein, dietary fibre, vitamins and other basic nutrients needed by children. It contains no preservatives. It uses two innovative two-colour-flavours: Lele orange (tomato, carrot and apple compound flavour) that contains β-carotene; and absolute purple (purple sweet potato, purple cabbage blueberry complex flavour) containing anthocyanins to help the children’s growth.
Yoghurt
Yoghurt in the broadest sense of the word (soured milk; suannai in Chinese) is the only dairy product consumed regularly by Chinese city dwellers around the founding of the PRC. As the bacteria consume most or all of the lactose, people with a lactose intolerance can eat yoghurt safely. Yoghurt was available in Beijing in clay pots with a paper lid. Milk and a culture were added to the pots, which were then kept to ferment until the yoghurt, a liquid with curds, was ready for consumption.
In the perception among Chinese consumers as well as in the promotion of dairy products, the differences between yoghurt, yoghurt drinks, fermented milk drinks, etc., is rather vague. There is a huge supply of fermented formulated dairy products. The most salient common trait is that the fermentation has lowered the lactose content, which makes the products available for a wider range of consumers. Other shared traits are that they are relatively sweet (sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners) and very often flavoured with fruit (real fruit, fruit flavours, or combinations).
Modern yoghurt production set off during the 1980s and the development of new products has never really stopped. Especially during the past decade, yoghurt has become a pet product of the Chinese dairy industry, a field in which the R&D departments could realize their wildest dreams in textures, flavours and packaging designs. One could even state that yoghurt has become a kind of fashionable product. Fads come and go and many products seem to have a very limited life span. Still, the developments in this sector contain interesting points to take away.
The nationalist trend
The renewed interest in traditional culture in China (the nationalist trend [guochao) is also reflected in the celebration of traditional holidays, like the Mid-Autumn Festival. Although dairy is regarded as a foreign food group, yoghurts have been launched in connection with traditional holidays. Yili has issued a limited edition of its Ambrosial yoghurt for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Even Beijing’s pastry maker Daoxiangcun, that is not a dairy company, has launched a one-time Dragon Boat Festival yoghurt flavoured with mooncake, the traditional pastry eaten during that festival and of which Daoxiangcun is a main supplier.
Yoghurt and milk tea
Milk tea is a vogue that reached Mainland China from Taiwan and quickly became bigger than in its home market. Young Chinese are willing to line up for hours to get a cup of their favorite milk tea. The latest stage in this fad is milk tea based coffee, i.e. coffee with all kinds of ingredients you can add to milk tea. It has even added a new word to Chinese vocabulary: milk-tea-ization (naichahua). This term is also used for various fads in the Chinese coffee scene. Soft drink maker Genki Forrest has cashed in that by launching a milk tea inspired yoghurt.
Black yoghurt
Launching black versions of existing food products is another trend in China. Black food is traditionally linked to health. Moreover, there is a small but stable group of young people interested in gothic music, including the black outfit that come with it. A number of black yoghurts have been launched during the 2020s. E.g., there is Yiming’s yoghurt coloured with inkfish ink and black sesame seeds.
New raw materials
The plant-based trend has not only reached China as well, it is booming there. There is a plant-based meat tradition in China developed by Buddhist monasteries. Buddhist monks and nuns were not allowed to eat meat, but like their European counterparts, did not want to disregard their craving for the texture and flavour of meat and fish. They developed a broad range of imitations that are still served in traditional vegetarian restaurants and restaurants operated by monasteries.
Solid yoghurt
A recent development is the launch of cubed frozen yoghurt by Yili. Yili claims that it is using a special dry freezing process developed by the space industry that retains the 100 mln lactobacillus bacteria in each cube. The probiotic used is patented by Yili.
Yoghurt candy
The step from solid yoghurt to yoghurt candy is a small one. Xinlüjia (Shantou, Fujian) produces a yoghurt candy called Old Yoghurt (Laosuannai). An interesting aspect (sales trick) is that you can heat the product first in your hand, then open it, and pull it into long shreds. That may not appeal to all people, but the manufacturer apparently believes it will attract younger consumers.
Ice cream
The developments in the Chinese ice cream market have been so rapid during the past few years, that they have been hard to follow. In this post, I will focus on a specific innovative category: savoury ice cream. Until recently, ice cream was typically a sweet to very sweet treat. Now, the most peculiar flavoured ice creams are appearing all over the country. I have selected a few representative products.
Shred meat (rousong) is a Chinese meat-based snack produced by slowly roasting meat for a long time until it is very tender, but still dry, unlike stewed meat, and then shredded. It is usually not consumed on its own, but is used as an ingredient in various foods. Here it is combined with chopped spring onions (the English says chives, but the Chinese, which I take as the original, says onions). It can work. Shred meat is traditionally used to flavour sweet-savoury pastries.
Hot and spicy
A chili flavoured variety was to be expected, so here it is. Spicy food used to be restricted to a few regions in China, but chili has become a vogue in almost the entire country. The packaging promises a lot of fire. I like chili chocolate (the mild type), so I expect to like this too.
More innovative dairy products will be developed in China in the near future. Keep an eye on this post and do not hesitate to contact me for tailor made market reports.
Light eating, qingshi (轻食) has been an issue in China for some time. It includes foods that are low(er) in salt, fat and sugar, but also has broader health connotations. Moreover, it is also about eating smaller meals or portions than usual. That is not just about food but about a complete life style concept, for many also including more exercising. This is reflected by the fact that many Chinese speak of ‘light-eating-ism’ (qingshizhuyi 轻食主义).
This post starts with a description of traditional Chinese concepts about nutrition. These concepts have not only never disappeared, young Chinese show a renewed interest in this tradition. Concepts and terms in this first chapter will reappear in following reports as well.
After that introduction, I will highlight the various aspects of light eating in separate chapters, and end with a review about the future of this movement.
Embedded in an ancient tradition
Qingshi is not just a Western trend catching on in China. The ancient Chinese medical classic Huangdi Neijing, the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor, written during the Qin (221 BC – 207 BC) and Han (206 BC ~20 AD) periods, warned against overeating in general and consuming too much fish or meat.
Huangdi Neijing was the first systematic medical book to be published in China. It incorporated the accumulation over centuries of medical experience and observations by the Chinese herbal doctors. The theory of Chinese medicine is heavily influenced by ancient Chinese philosophy, especially that of cosmology and movement of the universe. This world outlook views that things are compassed of five elements – metal, wood, water, fire and earth – and that all material is in a process of change between the universe and the human body. Traditional Chinese Medicinal (TCM) doctors believe that each individual is both a part of the universe and a complete unit, so that a cosmic view of health was required. A well-nourished body was therefore also regarded as a condition for maintaining mental health.
Within this philosophy, phenomena are understood in terms of contradictory relations, for example, the sun versus the moon, the sky versus the earth, the day versus the night, the male versus the female and the positive versus the negative. TCM doctors analyse the physical signs and symptoms of a case by differentiating the appearances into two opposite categories, for example, into yin (阴 dark) and yang (阳bright), han (寒 cold) and re (热hot), xu (虚weak) and shi (实strong), wai (外exterior) and nei (内interior). It is thought that these extremes exist at the same time and are interchangeable, moving to the opposite extreme when conditions change; for example, water becomes air when temperature rises. This is expressed as ‘things at one extreme must go to the opposite extreme’.
Don’t think that these terms are esoteric, only known to TCM doctors who have studied for years. Most Chinese, including the young and hip, know these terms and use them regularly. E.g., a woman can warn a female friend not to eat too much of a certain food during menstruation, because it would make her diet too cold (han). Another Chinese can tell his colleague that his complexion is getting a little plump, which could indicate that his ‘spleen is too weak (pi xu)’.
The concept of a ‘balanced diet’ and ‘a complete diet’
TCM doctors pay a lot of attention to proper nourishment by selecting appropriate food in a way which is somewhat philosophical. By appropriate amounts of food was meant not too much or too little, otherwise it was thought that one health extreme or the other could result.
Huangdi Neijing provides a few recommendations for food intake: (1) Poisons (毒du) (substances to rid or destroy unwanted principles in the body) and medicines provide cure. (2) Five cereals (rice, sesame seeds, soya beans, wheat, millet) provide nourishment. (3) Five fruits (dates, plum, chestnut, apricot, peach) produce complementarity. (4) Five animals (beef, dog meat, pork, mutton, chicken) give advantage. (5) Five vegetables (marrow, chive, bean sprouts, shallot, onion) are for supplementarity. (6) If the food tastes and smells good, eat it to replenish the body’s needs.
The first quotation refers to an important aspect of the TCM view on food and nutrition: food and medicine come from the same sources (药食同源 yao shi tong yuan). The concept of du, literally meaning poison, can be confusing. In the Western perception, poising is something that makes you ill. In TCM is can be that as well, but the same substance that makes you ill can also help restoring the balance. In this sense, it resembles the Western tradition of homeopathy: curing a disease using a very thin solution of the substance that causes it.
The following four parts of the statement describe basic food groups and reflect principles, like having a variety of cereal like foods in order to nourish the body. The number ‘five’ (derived from the five fingers of a hand) does not mean a number per se, but signifies the varieties of cereal, fruit, animal and vegetable derived food. Cereals are considered basic and staple foods for nourishment Fruits are placed second because they compensate for shortages in whatever cereals provided. Animal-derived foods are perceived to be important for the human body, with its resemblance to the animal. Vegetables are regarded to provide an extended range of substances.
With the development of society, people and their circumstances change and cultural exchanges between countries include those of food and technology. Sometimes cultures integrate. Thus the food produced in the Chinese restaurants or home kitchens today will not be representative of the traditional diet, because it will have been modified to suit the taste of people in various locations and countries. However, it has been shown in the 1988 National Nutrition Survey of China, that most people living in the countryside and cities still follow traditional food patterns.
The concept of han (cold) and re (hot)
Han and re literally mean ‘cold’ and ‘hot’. However, the meanings of these essential concepts in TCM nutritional thinking are much more complex. They refer, not only to the body’s status, but also to its function, reaction and symptoms. For example, when a person has ingested cold food, (s)he may respond with related characteristics. Thus, han food may cause diarrhea and re food may cause constipation; han foods may cause nausea while re foods may cause gut problems such as heartburn. On the other hand, han food could combat constipation and re food diarrhoea. These symptoms do not relate to food temperatures, but to the relationship between food and the human body.
Whilst food is believed to provide our bodies with nourishment, the body reacts to food in different ways. For example, if a person eats too much meat, its metabolic effects through acid production may be uncomfortable. This is what is described as re (literally: hot; Westerners also speak of heartburn). Modern nutritional science concentrates on the nutrient components of foods and on the metabolism of nutrients. It rarely acknowledges that there are both nutrient and non-nutrient substances in food which might affect the body. Unripe guava may cause constipation and this may be explained by contemporary food chemistry in terms of tannic acid; this phenomenon is regarded as re in TCM nutrition. Ripened guava does not have the same effect and therefore is not considered as re.
Research has been made in China to link modern food science with TCM concepts. It has been argued that food which contains more or less cation than anion can create a situation of either han or re, although such a generalization is still difficult to accept at a point in nutrition science where the effects of any one cation or anion are recognized as complex. Most fruit and vegetables are considered as han which means that food high in dietary fiber belongs to the han category. That both han food and foods containing dietary fiber can cause ’emptying of the bowels’ is a proximation of the two streams of thought.
Water can be both han or re, depending on the mineral composition of the water, having different biological consequences. E.g., water which contained a lot of magnesium has been considered as han.
Neutral (温wen) and supplementing (补bu)
Food that is in-between han and re is considered neutral (wen) (literally meaning ‘warm’). Rice is an example of a neutral food. Wen food is usually compensated for by bu (literally meaning ‘to supplement’), to avoid nutrient insufficiency. According to TMC, wheats are slightly han, beans are neutral, most fish are neutral as well. Beef is wen, mutton is very re and pork is slightly han. Usually han food is cooked with some re food to neutralize it. For example, vegetables (a han food) are usually cooked with ginger or pepper (re foods) to neutralize them.
It is tempting to compare these TCM observations with modern food research. E.g., existing research shows that a given amount of carbohydrate or carbohydrate containing food can cause very different glycemic responses. Such contemporary nutrition science concepts may be regarded as analogous of traditional Chinese food concepts. However, this is a bridge too far for this report.
Staple vs non-staple
A traditional Chinese meal contains two parts – 饭 fan the staple food, i.e. a cereal, and the rest of the meal, referred to as ‘dishes’, 菜 cai. Cereal is the staple food in the Chinese diet and this may include rice, wheat, corn sorghum and millet, but tubers like (sweet) potatoes, taro, etc. and beans are also regarded as staples. The word cai in everyday Chinese is the same as that for vegetables, because Chinese dishes mostly contain vegetables, with other kinds of food added as supplementary ingredients. It also means ‘accompanying food’ which indicates that ‘dishes’ is only a side dish to accompany the main course – rice (in Southern China) and wheat products like noodles in the North.
Medicine and food come from the same origin
Chinese herbal medicines are part of the normal diet. Chinese scholars believe that what we eat and drink should provide all the nutrients that the body needs. Some medicinal plants may be used as part of a normal diet to maintain a healthy life.
Certain foods have preventive effects. For example, the lingzhi or reiki (the Japanese pronunciation of the same characters), a kind of mushroom and is believed to contain substances prolonging life expectancy. Liver it believed to cure night blindness, seaweeds goiter, and that black beans anaemia. However, as there was no knowledge of vitamins or minerals, the reason behind these assumptions could not be given.
Herbal medicines which were used as medicine were sometimes also cooked as food in a combined dish. They were used as bu. Ginseng and dates are popular examples. These foods or medicines used to be prescribed according to the needs of the patient or healthy person. However, in modern times some have become so popular that they are part of a regular diet. Linked to the current nationalist trend (国潮 guochao) in China, there is a noticeable increase in interest in TCM-based supplements among young affluent Chinese consumers. I will revert to that later in this report.
The Chinese authorities are regulating this use of TCM herbs as food ingredients. There is an official list of herbs and their extracts that are allowed to be used as food ingredients. TCM materials not listed are prohibited in regular foods and beverages.
Low sugar
Chinese have a sweet tooth. We all have, of course, but my first impression of Chinese food products, when I studied in China for a year in the mid-1970s, compared with their counterparts that I was used to Europe, was that they tasted significantly sweeter.
The reason for this is not much different from that in the Western nations. Sweet is an attractive flavour and sugar used to be a luxury item, so a high sugar content marked a high standard of living.
The ultimate sweet food is candy. The Chinese word tang refers to both sugar and the generic category of candy. This poses an interesting linguistic problem when you seriously start thinking about reducing sugar in food. Candy should then be an important focus product, but how do you express ‘sugar-free candy’ in Chinese? It would be something like ‘coffee-free coffee’. However, these expressions are regularly used in professional and commercial literature, so apparently Chinese can distinguish between tang = sugar and tang = candy.
Obesity
The inevitable effect of consuming sugar-heavy foods and drinks, obesity, has also become a problem in China. Among Chinese adults aged 18-69 in 2018, there were about 85 million obese people, of which 48 million were men and 37 million were women. There were 11 million more men than women. In 2004, there were only 28 million obese people in China. In other words, in just 14 years, the obesity rate in China has risen from 3.1% to 8.1%. A report from 2021 estimates that the number of obese people at 230 million, a year-on-year increase of 4.5%.
Children are also affected. The latest research shows that the incidence of childhood obesity in China has reached 20%. Data from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention shows that there are more than 550,000 obese people under the age of 17, and 12% of children are overweight. Apart from consuming too much sugar, part of the childhood obesity is caused by parents who still adhere to the traditional Chinese belief that a fat body is a sign of health and therefore give their children too much food, including modern manufactured foods and drinks.
Concerned consumers
This is a good point to mention that modern Chinese consumers are possibly the most ingredient conscious people in the world. Many Chinese do read ingredients lists of the foods they buy (or before they buy them) and discuss their concerns on social media and other Internet platforms. One reason for this is the experience with a number of serious food safety issues during the past decade, which has made Chinese consumers suspicious of statements about food quality from the manufacturers of those foods.
Chinese tend to take statements like ‘sugar-free’ literally. Moreover, the Chinese food industry has recently started using the term ‘zero sugar’(0 tang 0糖) to indicate sugar-free, which conveys an even more absolute feeling that the product does not contain any sugar. Many people doubt whether they can believe such a statement. The government met this suspicion with clear specifications.
Item
denomination
specification
Sugar
sugar free
<= 0.5g/100 g/ml
low sugar
<= 5g/100 g/ml
Related to this problem is the statement ‘zero calories’ (0ka 0卡) that often follows the indication ‘zero sugar’. This is even more tricky, because the energy in a food product does not only come from sugar. Articles informing consumers that sugar replacers are just that, replacing sugar, but do not mean that a food does not provide calories appear regularly in the Chinese press. Interestingly, no party in China has so far proposed to prohibit using the term ‘zero calories’ on food packaging.
Chinese doctors also point out in such publications that the use of artificial sweeteners also does not affect the chance of developing diabetes. Diabetes is big problem in China. One study states that the number of new patients increases with approximately 12.7 million p.a. The total number inf 2021 was 140 million. Another doctor points out that marketing a food like steamed bun (mantou 馒头) would be useless, because eating it would still increase the glycaemic index. We knew this already, but I am adding this to show that topics like this are discussed in the Chinese media in much more detail than in similar Western media geared to consumers.
Communities
Chinese culture is high communitarian. Chinese prefer to do whatever they do in groups of linked minded people. Many consumers concerned with the state of their own health and that of their loved ones form groups seeking to reduce sugar intake. On Xiaohongshu, an app popular with users mostly between 18 and 34, searches for phrases such as “quitting sugar (jietang戒糖),” “sugar control (kongtang控糖),” and “sugar reduction (jiantang减糖),” show tens to hundreds of thousands of results. On social media platform Douban (also known as Tik Tok), also popular among the under-35 population, forums for users wanting to quit sugar can host thousands of members. One, the “Quit Sugar Commune” established in July 2018, has over 5,000 members who “check in” each day to record their low-sugar milestones and progress toward health goals.
Celebrities have also taken up the craze. In April 2018, singer and actress Zhang Shaohan told her over 15 million followers on Weibo, a Chinese platform that can be best described as a combination of LinkedIn and Twitter, that her “secret” to staying young is a zero-sugar diet: “Highly processed sugar … is probably one of the most harmful inventions in human history,” she wrote, earning 190,000 likes and 50,000 forwards on the platform.
The National Health Commission (the former Ministry of Public Health) has also announced a goal of getting consumers to cut down their sugar intake to below 25 grams as part of the “Healthy China Initiative,” as well as updating standards for labeling sugar content on food products and restricting the sale of high-sugar foods.
Less knowledgeable manufacturers
While the large Chinese food manufacturers will have sufficiently knowledge in-house, quite a number of smaller local producers lack such knowledge. This can lead to interesting discussions on Chinese food industry online platforms. E.g., a local manufacturer of pastries (he does not provide much personal information on his personal home page, but he seems to be an elderly baker in Henan province) inquires if someone in the discussion group is familiar with sugar-free biscuits or pastries. In particular, he asks people to ‘introduce raw materials that can be used’ in such products. The first reply comes from a man with a university background (Master degree) and working in a food research institute. He answers that there are no real sugar-free biscuits or pastries, as the starch in the products are transformed into sugar by the human body. Another person (hiding his background, except for working in cereal processing) adds that you should distinguish between ‘sugar-free’ (wutang 无糖) and ‘no sucrose’ (wuzhetang 无蔗糖). The discussion continues for some time, but the above suffices to show the level of knowledge among manufacturers in China.
Sugar substitutes
A new problem is that sugar substitutes come with their own problems. Almost all substitutes are produced in China, and the country is a major producer of some. However, food additives in general have a bad name in China. China used to be food additives heaven. Ingredients lists on food packaging (if provided at all) could be quite long. I remember reading an article in Chinese newspaper entitled: ‘does ice cream really need 12 types of additives?’. This is the Chinese consumer again (see above) who actually reads such lists. Even the more natural sugar substitutes like stevia, are regarded as unnatural and therefore something you would rather not have in your food. Some of the older ones like aspartame or acesulfame-K, are linked to cancer in many publications in popular media. A report from Chinese news outlet The Paper of November 2021 warned that consumers of sugar substitutes are 14 percent more likely to experience depression. It also noted that consumption of aspartame on an empty stomach may cause a blood sugar imbalance, and erythritol can lead to gastrointestinal troubles. An article by the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission of August 2021 warned about the risks of excessive consumption of sweeteners. It suggests that low-calorie sugar substitutes don’t satisfy the brain’s sense of hunger, leading people to eat more food, which in turn increases their risk of weight gain and diabetes.
Then there is the issue of price. Using sugar substitutes come at a cost. Established in 2018, Nice Cream uses natural sugar substitutes like erythritol (rather than artificial sweeteners like aspartame), but this is expensive, and it is a part of the reason why Nice Cream products retail for up to 10 times the price of other ice creams. There is a market segment for expensive but healthy leisure foods like this, but it is relatively small.
Low fat
Unlike sugar, fat is a macro-ingredient indispensable in the human diet. In processed foods, fat adds to the flavour and texture and contributes to the satisfactory feeling consumption. We love fat, but not as a part of ourselves. While body fat is not only produced from consumed fats, consumers in more advanced markets, who start caring about their weight and health in general, first of all blame the fat in their foods.
A concurrent problem in China in this respect is the rapidly increasing ratio of meat in the Chinese diet. With the increasing spendable income, consumers can and want to buy foods that until then were regarded as luxury. Meat, in particular beef is one of such foods. The ratio of meat in the Chinese diet has almost doubled in a couple of decades. As even lean meat contains fat, this has increased the fat intake of Chinese people considerably.
Low(er) fat
Low fat as a marketing issue therefore started in China considerable earlier than the current Light Eating vogue. However, it was mainly literally lowering fat in the formulation and compensating its effect on the texture by adding additives like modified starch, emulsifiers, etc. When the Western food industry launched that ‘low sugar, low fat, low salt’ slogan, it was readily taken over by the Chinese government and therefore also by the Chinese food industry. Lowering fat was then approached in a much broader way, including e.g. substituting fat with other, more natural, ingredients.
In restaurants and home cooking, Chinese started eating more Western style salads. One of the eating habits Westerners brought to China when they started living there was eating mixed chopped raw vegetables as meals. Chinese observing this described those Westerners as ‘eating grass (chicao 吃草)’. This expression is quite flattering, as it implies eating animal feed. This attitude has changed considerably.
Zero fat (?)
After lowering fat in food was aligned with low sugar and salt, the designation zero fat (0zhifang ) also appeared on food packaging and marketing campaigns. However, as is the case with sugar, 100% fat-free is a close to impossible to reach. The Chinese government has therefore promulgated the following specifications.
Item
denomination
specification
Fat
fat free
<= 0.5g/100 g/ml
low fat
<= 3g/100 g/ml
Fat in food formulations cannot be simply replaced by ‘artificial fats’ as is the case with artificial sweeteners. I already mentioned additives like modified starch or emulsifiers to mimic the effect of fat on textures. This is technically a good solution, but adds additives, often several, to the ingredients lists on the packaging and Chinese consumers like to study those lists.
Fibre
Chinese food technologists are therefore focusing on adding more texture to foods in the shape of dietary fiber. It does not deliver the same texture, but it can replace the bulkiness of food that is delivered by fat. This has also a psychological aspect. If a food company would directly advertise with replacing meat with vegetables or coarse grains, a considerable segment of Chinese consumers would object, as it sounds like giving up on a luxury food that they now can afford. On the other hand, adding ‘dietary fibre’ (shanshi xianwei 膳食纤维) sounds fancy and modern and therefore gives a luxury feeling.
Candy
Low fat obviously is less important for manufactures of candy. One related issue linked to candy is fruit jelly made from konjac. Fruit jelly are extremely popular among Chinese children, and female consumers of all ages. They can be a source of calories, but those made from konjac are relatively better in this respect. Manufacturers of konjac-based fruit jellies therefore make sure that consumers get the message by printing it on the packaging in huge characters.
Bakery
Fat replacement is more important for producers of bakery products. Bread is an interesting item in this product group. White refined flour and food made from it were until recently regarded as a luxury products and with the increase of spending power, Chinese consumers bought more and more of it to enjoy the same delicate foods, e.g immaculately white steamed bread, like the rich. That has changed very quickly in recent years. Whole meal flower and bread, pastry, biscuits, etc., made from it are now the thing to buy by the health conscious young urban professionals.
Other, coarser, cereals than wheat or rice have also become popular (again). An example is millet (xiaomi 小米). Millet was the sustenance that Chairman Mao and the Red Army relied on to sustain them during the arduous campaigns against the Kuomintang and the invading Japanese. Millet has some of the properties we might associate with the soldiers who relied on it back in 30s and 40s. While it prefers a warm climate, it possesses the ability to adapt to other environments, as well as being remarkably drought resistant and able to survive in poor, heavily acidic or alkaline soils. The nutrients millet contains are hard to digest. However, it is rich in calcium, phosphorous, iron, carotene, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, niacin, zinc, manganese, selenium and oestrogen, amongst other things.
The Chinese food industry has also discovered chia seeds as a source of fibre that also provides protein. Other sources of fibre incorporate in bakery products are vegetables, fruits and TCM herbs. The also provide functionality. Water chestnuts, dates (jujubes) and goji berries are examples of plants that also have medicinal functionality according to TCM and are nowadays widely used to enhance food and beverage recipes.
Modernization
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. 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.
Low salt
Salt is the most generally used flavoring ingredient in food all over the world. It is currently one of most dangerous food ingredients in terms of food borne diseases. Until purified salt was only available in small volumes and therefore relatively expensive, the latter was not an issue. Now that salt is available in abundance excessive use has become a global problem as well.
High intake
In China, salt intake has consistently been very high and is believed to account for 40% of all deaths. Despite various governmental campaigns since 2007, the latest estimates show that salt intake in adults still averages at 11 g/day,6 making it one of the highest intake levels in the world. Importantly, the slow progress made so far in salt reduction could be offset by the rapid increase in the consumption of processed and out-of-home foods that comes with urbanisation.
The Chinese authorities had already started a salt reduction program, when the Western ‘low sugar, low fat, low salt’ campaign reached China too. This seems to help. In the beginning, Chinese consumers were reluctant to reduce salt in home cooking (a major contribution to salt intake in China) or restaurants. Salty snacks also remained popular. In the context of Light Eating, the affluent health conscious have not at least taken the lead in salt reduction.
Regulation
As is the case with sugar and fat, zero salt (0 yan 0盐) is not really attainable. The Chinese authorities have therefore also set a number of specifications.
Item
denomination
specification
Salt
salt free
<= 5mg/100 g/ml
low salt
120mg/100 g/ml
Easier
Low salt is harder to accept by consumers, but easier to accomplish than low sugar or fat, as salt has less influence on the products texture. Chinese publications suggest a series of ways to adapt formulations to a lower salt content.
Use vegetables and fruits with stronger flavours (peppers, onions, lemons, etc);
Use spices or strong flavoured animal products like dried fish;
Use TCM herbs. These usually also have strong flavours and you can advertise with the herb’s functionality (date, cinnamon, etc);
Add ingredients with a high potassium content (black mouse ear fungus (mu’er 木耳), laver, banana, potato, etc.).
The main challenge for the authorities is the same as in most other parts of world: how to gradually wean consumers of the salty taste they are so addicted to.
Soy sauce
A special ingredient that needs highlighting here is China’s favourite savoury ingredient: soy sauce. Already in 2017, Sichuan-based Cuiwei Food launched a low salt soy sauce, produced by natural fermentation. While salt reduction is a positive development, soy sauce has always been a typical savoury seasoning product, so completely salt-free soy sauce can only succeed when marketed as general flavouring ingredient.
End note: Light Eating, fad or there to stay?
Light Eating is certainly not a fad of the day, but something that will have a long term influence on the Chinese food market in the broadest sense. As a concept has been launched a few years ago, first of all among patrons of fitness centres, who became more conscious about the long term effects of eating too much. Their income increased rapidly, but not so much their traditional eating habits. This resulted in a rapid increase of obese people in China. However, that additional income allowed them to start exercising ‘like the Westerners do’, which introduced them to regard eating salads as complete meals. Western was (and still is, although it is fading) synonymous with modern.
The movement grew with the increasing number of people who started exercising regularly and caught the attention of entrepreneurs who set up shops offering healthy (light) foods. When the Western low salt – sugar – fat concept entered China, it was linked to the Light Eating concept almost immediately, which drew the food and beverage industry into the movement as well. The academic world (medical science, food science) followed soon.
While writing this end note, I made search in the Chinese search engine Baidu with the longer term qingshizhuyi (light-eating-ism). Baidu came up with 9,170,000 web pages including this term. This indicates that the concept is a real ism, a world outlook. It will be influential for some time to come.
What could the next step be? One possibility could be ‘clean label’. The concept has caught attention in China. I indicated above that China used to be food additive heaven, but that Chinese consumers have become wary those long lists of additives. However, you can still see such lists on products marketed as ‘light’. I expect that this will become an issue of debate within the light eating movement in China soon.
This post is a summary of our continuous research of the developments in the Chinese food and beverage industries. Contact us for a larger, if needed tailor made, study, including concrete examples of Chinese products that are already on the market.
Peverelli on Chinese food and culture 