China Focus: Sugar reduction, fresh food sales surge, COVID-19 and more feature in our round-up
Less sugar please: Healthier teas growing in popularity among younger consumers – China’s Nayuki
Chinese tea brand, Nayuki is betting on consumers’ increasing health awareness to drive the sales of its ‘healthier’ sugar-free and fruit tea series in China.
Data from Nayuki showed that from January to November 2019, sales of its sugar-free tea series which includes cold brew and pure tea, was 0.67% higher than its popular cheese tea series, the first time in four years.
Peng Xin, the founder of Nayuki told FoodNavigator-Asia: “Healthy, low calories, and low sugar are the future trends of new-style tea drinks. Over the past 10 months, 50% of consumers have chosen less or no sugar when purchasing tea.”
Half sugar: China’s JK Sucralose to invest $30m in research and production capacity
China-based sucralose manufacturer JK Sucralose is investing in a research institute and factory for its half-sugar project, which will be completed in the second half of 2020.
Half-sugar is a combination of sucralose and white sugar, that is five times sweeter than sugar. The RMB 200 million (US$30 million) investment will comprise research, formulation and increase production efficiency.
The company hopes this project can help achieve and meet the goals of the government-backed Healthy China 2030 Initiative.
“By reducing the sugar consumption of the people of China, we hope to reduce the rate of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity within China, which is currently on an uptrend. At the same time with this project, we hope to promote a healthier China while preserving the balanced sweet taste of sugar in everyone’s lives,” Alex An, CEO and founder of JK Sucralose told FoodNavigator-Asia.
JD reports surge in fresh food orders in China during Chinese New Year and coronavirus outbreak
China e-commerce giants JD say they have seen sales of fresh foods, especially vegetables, increase both online and offline during the Chinese New Year period and during the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak.
Between January 24 to February 2, vegetables had the highest sales growth on JD.com, increasing by nearly 450% compared with the same period last year.
Sales of pork, beef, mutton, poultry and eggs on JD.com exceeded 400% year-on-year growth. Sales of pork increased the fastest, by more than 10 times year-on-year.
In total, nearly 15,000 tons of fresh food, 18,900 tons of rice, flour and grain, 5.9 million litres of cooking oil, 1.8 million bottles of disinfectant solution and 3 million bottles of liquid soap were sold on its online platform.
‘Totally catastrophic’: China’s coronavirus crisis sees global F&B authorities react with varying degrees of caution
The recent coronavirus outbreak originating from animals in China has seen food and beverage authorities and industries worldwide taking steps to prevent spreading or ‘importing’ the virus into their countries – some more aggressively than others.
The coronavirus, now dubbed COVID-19, was first identified in Wuhan, China where most of the victims so far have been located. The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the outbreak to be a global health emergency last month.
In response to the crisis, authorities in several countries have acted to ban the import of food items from China. One of these was Indonesia, which started with the ban of live animal imports from the country and is set to release a list of other banned food items soon.
“We will obviously stop live animals imports from China and are still considering banning other products,” Trade Minister Agus Suparmanto said in a media briefing after a government meeting about the virus.
Snacking for kids: H&H’s Good Gout to expand China product offering and distribution channels
Health & Happiness (H&H) Group’s Good Gout is focusing on its China expansion this year, with new product launches and more offline distribution channels in the pipeline for the firm which specialises in organic snacks for children.
The French company was acquired by H&H in 2018 and first entered the China market last year.
This year, the firm will launch new products such as new flavoured nut bars, animal-shaped biscuits, chocolate biscuit, yoghurt, and vegetable chips.
Lulu Yan, general manager at Good Gout Asia said the firm saw a growing consumer demand for healthy snacks.
Since its launch in China five months ago, Yan told us, “Good Gout is getting more popular with Chinese consumers. The brand exposure has exceeded 170 million and the online click rate of main promoted product exceeded the industry’s average rate, and offline activity conversion rate reached 28%.”
