On the evening of April 10, Yuanqi Forest announced on its official microblog that the packaging of most milk tea produced from February 4 and all milk tea produced since March 18 had been changed from the original "0 sucrose low fat" to "low sugar and low fat". All Yuanqi Forest Milk Tea produced from March 20 no longer contains crystalline fructose in the raw materials. Yuanqi Forest also reminds: Milk tea has milk, so it has sugar.
It is understood that this is the final solution to the vulnerability problem that existed in the product identification before. Yuanqi Forest also said that consumers who have purchased related goods on the e-commerce platform will receive a 20 yuan coupon.
It is reported that Yuanqi Forest had previously advertised its 0 sucrose in its milk tea product advertisements. In this regard, some nutritionists pointed out that 0 sucrose does not represent 0 sugar, and this topic once triggered a high degree of discussion among netizens on social media. After paying attention to this matter, Yuanqi Forest immediately opened the rectification and upgrading and apologized for it, and also said that it would invite nutrition experts to supervise the whole process and implement the product upgrade.
Nowadays, "sugar-free", "sugar substitute" and "0 calories" have become the keywords that affect young people's choice of food, and various products such as beverages, yogurt, snacks and other products have appeared on the market, bringing consumers far more choices than before.
Since the beginning of 2019, all kinds of sugar-free drinks have emerged in an endless stream, Coca-Cola's "Three Musketeers" Coke, Sprite, Fanta have launched sugar-free products, the old brand Master Kong has launched sugar-free cold brew green tea, and the emerging beverage brand Yuanqi Forest has quickly gained a place in the market because of its main sugar-free.
Screenshot of the official website of Yuanqi Forest
Sugar-free does not mean that it is not sweet, but that various sugar substitutes are used as sweeteners to satisfy the taste. According to the provisions of China's "General Principles of Nutrition Labeling of Prepackaged Foods", the sugar content in food is less than 0.5g/100g (solid) or 100mL (liquid), which can be labeled as "sugar-free food".
Sparkling soda water focuses on zero fat, zero sugar, zero calorie, milk tea focuses on zero sucrose, low fat... Yuanqi Forest has attracted the attention of the majority of consumers and is known as the "spoiler" in the beverage industry. China News Network inspected the nutrition ingredient list and ingredient list of Yuanqi Forest Beverage products and found that the milk tea products mentioned in the apology statement did add crystalline fructose before "upgrading".
Yuanqi Forest Milk Tea Product Ingredients Table Diagram
The nutrition facts of soda sparkling water shows that each 100ml of drink contains 0g of sugar and 3.9g of carbohydrates, and the carbohydrates contained in the drink are mainly from erythritol.
Yuanqi Forest Soda Sparkling Aquatic Product Ingredients Table Diagram
Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in the Chinese food industry, said that if Yuanqi Forest does not use 0 sugar as a selling point, but only writes it in the ingredient list, it is only misleading; but it now uses zero sugar and zero fat zero card as the differentiated selling point of the entire product, which is even more serious. "Yuanqi Forest is not just misleading consumers, but deceiving consumers." Zhu Danpeng said, "The State Administration of Market Regulation has explicitly prohibited the labeling of zero additives and zero sugar on drinks and foods. In addition, the so-called zero sugar in the Yuanqi Forest is not really zero sugar, and the Yuanqi Forest still contains sugar substitutes. Therefore, the advertising and publicity of Yuanqi Forest not only deceives and defrauds consumers, but also has the risk of violating the law. ”
Some industry observers said that all of Yuanqi Forest's current products revolve around 0 sugar, sugar-free or no added sucrose, and such brand positioning is conducive to focusing on core target groups. But the problem is that if crystalline fructose is added to the nutritional composition list and ingredient list of the product, and the propaganda is 0 sucrose or 0 sugar, it is easy to cause consumers to misunderstand.
The relevant person in charge of Yuanqi Forest once explained the selection of "erythritol" as a sugar substitute: erythritol is a natural sweet substance produced by yeast fermentation of corn starch raw materials, and does not participate in human blood sugar metabolism and does not produce heat after entering the human body.
According to Chen Wei, chief physician of the Department of Clinical Nutrition of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, most of the taste of zero calorie and zero sugar comes from commercial sweeteners. The sweetener itself is safe and can be divided into sweeteners with heat cards and sweeteners without heat cards, which are able to produce more sweetness, even 200-300 times sweeter than sucrose. Chen Wei pointed out that if compared with sugary drinks, 0 calorie 0 sugar drinks do help to prevent obesity; but if compared with water, because sweeteners will have an exciting effect in the brain, it will lead you to consume more high-calorie foods, in this sense, sugar-free drinks are not completely healthy drinks.
Zhu Yi, associate professor of the College of Food Science of China Agricultural University, has also reminded that artificial sweeteners will also raise blood sugar, take too much sugar, will disturb the intestinal flora, thereby affecting metabolism, but also let the brain have the wrong instructions, thinking that eating is real sugar, in the long run insulin will be unbalanced, but will become fat. In the clinic, the side effects of sugar substitutes may be more obvious. Some doctors say that the side effects of erythritol usually lead to gastrointestinal discomfort, and even lead to flatulence and abdominal ringing in the abdomen.