Instant gratification: Lúave’s Vietnamese boba milk tea to launch in Singapore with healthier ready-to-drink options

It comes in various flavours that include original, cheese, matcha, and Hong Kong (yuan-yang)​. The new brand also showcased two of its latest flavours, durian and chocolate, at the Speciality Food & Drinks Asia (SFDA) 2024, held at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre in Singapore from 26 to 28 June.

Lúave hopes to launch its instant boba milk tea by the third quarter of this year in Singapore, Thailand, and South Korea.

“We’ll be among the first in Singapore supermarkets. As for Thailand and Korea, there are smaller brands that have instant boba milk tea, but the competition is not as great as in Vietnam, where Nestle’s boba milk tea is available,”​ said Thao Le, brand manager for Idocean, the parent company of Lúave.

“We invest a lot in R&D, and we use only natural, good quality ingredients. Most of them are sourced locally in Vietnam or Asia, but the cheese is from parts of Europe, and the chocolate is from Belgium,”​ said Le, who plans to charge US $2.70 for a pack of five.

Lúave sees Singapore as a good place to start its Asian expansion as it plans to market its instant beverages as a slightly premium range. The island state is known for its acceptance of healthier, good quality products that come with a higher price tag. But the first hurdle to overcome is to get a Nutri-Grade B for its range of instant boba milk tea.

Low fat, low sugar options for health-conscious markets​

Singapore’s Nutri-Grade system classifies drinks based on their sugar and saturated fat levels. Drinks graded ‘A’ have the lowest sugar and saturated fat content, while those graded ‘D’ have the highest.

The minimum requirement for packaged beverages to be sold in Singapore’s major supermarkets is a Nutri-Grade C.

“We’re currently a D. So we have reformulated our drinks and cut the sugar content from 14% to 5%, and reduced the fat from 2.8g to less than 1.2g fat per 100 ml. Hopefully, this will earn us a grade B by third quarter of this year,” ​said Le.

Due to this Nutri-Grade regulation, Singapore will only carry the low fat and low sugar options while other Asian regions will have both original and healthier versions. This works well for Lúave since consumers around the globe are increasingly health conscious and would appreciate healthier options.

Marketing to the world​

Convenience and creativity are also crucial for Lúave’s expansion plans.

“We want to market our products to the world because we’re proud of our brand. But at this point, we can’t compete with the major brands. We don’t do large ads on billboards or pay celebrities to market our products. So we do it the ‘boutique’ way, and we rely on word of mouth and selling our brand story online, such as via social media, and we try to be creative in offering what consumers want,”​ said Le.

With its ready-to-drink packs, only hot water is needed to dissolve the milk tea powder before adding boba pearls, the chewy tapioca balls that are packed separately. Ice may be added for a cold drink.

As for its colourful packaging, every flavour features the location from which a key ingredient is sourced. The original milk tea box shows a classic Vietnamese landscape with farmers wearing the traditional non la​. Hong Kong flavour showcases the region’s night scene since the yuan-yang,​ a concoction of coffee and tea, originated from there. The matcha box has a Japanese temple and pagoda with Mount Fuji in the backdrop, while the cheese and chocolate flavours feature landscapes from Europe and Belgium respectively.

“Every box has a pair of hands holding our bubble tea. It’s like what you see in Instagram, where people like to take selfies with their food or drink when they travel. That’s our brand story. We hope to expand globally, and at the same time we want to take our customers around the world,”​ said Le.

It also plans to formulate other flavours for the regions it is keen on, such as oolong for China, and red velvet for the US. Vegan versions are also in the works for the Middle Eastern market, which has potential for dairy-free and plant-based products. Additionally, the vegan milk teas will not require hot water to dissolve the powder – room temperature water will do, which will make it even more convenient for consumers.

The firm is also exploring the idea of functional ingredients, such as collagen, in their drinks in response to the protein and beauty-from-within trends.

Its products are available worldwide via Shopee.

To explore expansion opportunities outside Vietnam, Lúave was launched by Idocean last year to cater to the B2C market. Idocean was founded in 2014 as a B2B firm that supplies beverage solutions to other brands and sees an average of 30% year-on-year growth rate.