Why Luckin Coffee Destroyed Expired Sauce Latte Ingredients

Luckin Coffee stores had to destroy large batches of unopened sauce-flavored latte thick milk after the drink's sales collapsed. The ingredient, tied to the Moutai co-branded latte that sold over 100 million yuan on its first day in 2023, was nearing its shelf-life date with no return channel, so employees poured the stock down the drain.

The follow-up Year of the Dragon sauce-flavored chocolate latte, launched around Spring Festival, did not revive demand. Staff had expected it to lift the original sauce-flavored latte, but the series instead became slow-moving, leaving warehouse stock unused. The episode has prompted discussion about ingredient waste and whether co-branded novelty drinks belong on menus long term.

Luckin Coffee's sauce-flavored latte, launched in collaboration with Moutai, once achieved a remarkable first-day sales figure exceeding 100 million yuan. However, the subsequent Year of the Dragon sauce-flavored chocolate latte failed to sustain the hype, causing the sauce-flavored beverage series to fall into a sluggish sales predicament. A large quantity of unopened sauce-flavored latte thick milk, facing expiration and with no return channel, had to be destroyed by stores themselves, with employees forced to pour box after box of ingredients down the drain. This incident sparked heated discussion among netizens, with some lamenting the waste and suggesting following supermarkets' approach of clearing near-expiry products through discounts; others pointed out that the taste of the sauce-flavored latte is polarizing, and that novel products are better suited for short-term sales rather than long-term menu placement.

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In 2023, Luckin achieved a phenomenal breakout on social platforms, with the sauce-flavored latte created jointly with Moutai playing a major role—first-day sales exceeded 100 million yuan, a single product drove Luckin's stock price up, and multiple related topics surged onto trending lists... This cross-brand collaboration drink became a super hit in Luckin's product line almost overnight, making great contributions to enhancing the brand's influence.

When Luckin joined hands with Moutai for the second time, launching the Year of the Dragon sauce-flavored chocolate latte around the Spring Festival consumption period, the dazzling sales performance of the past failed to reappear. The market heat of the sauce-flavored latte seemed to fade like a receding tide, falling from a spotlighted protagonist to a faded internet celebrity that had lost its halo.

According to recent feedback from Luckin store employees, they had originally hoped that the Year of the Dragon sauce-flavored chocolate launched during the Spring Festival would in turn drive sales of the sauce-flavored latte, but reality was completely opposite to expectations—not only did it fail to boost sales, but the sauce-flavored series instead fell into slow-moving status, and the stockpiled sauce-flavored latte thick milk in the warehouse never had an occasion to be opened and used.

What was even more troublesome was that this batch of still-unopened ingredients was produced last year, and a considerable portion was approaching the end of its shelf life. According to Luckin employees, under company rules, expired ingredients are destroyed by stores themselves, such as milk or milk caps left unused after opening. As for materials like these that had never been used but were about to expire, because there was no return channel, they likewise could only be handled by the stores themselves.

So Luckin employees could only endure the heartache, open box after box of unopened sauce-flavored latte thick milk, pour all the liquid inside into sinks, and watch helplessly as the ingredients were washed by tap water into the drain. "More than a hundred boxes expired at my store, and a bunch of us spent over two hours pouring and cleaning up," "Whose sauce-flavored [product] expires box by box? Oh—it's mine! It really broke the boss's heart."

Many onlooking netizens expressed regret upon seeing bottle after bottle of sauce-flavored thick milk latte being poured away. Although handling near-expiry products is inherently understandable, destroying them in this way is ultimately a waste. Many netizens believed Luckin might as well borrow from supermarkets' approach and sell near-expiry products at discounted low prices. For example, the sauce-flavored latte priced at 19 yuan per cup in stores could fully be included in the 9.9 yuan discount campaign, attracting more consumers to buy and thereby accelerating the consumption of raw materials.

"Hurry up and make it 9.9, let me wipe it out," "For those saying it's expired, wouldn't they discount and sell it before it's about to expire?" "Because this one doesn't qualify for 9.9... so I never drank it," "Only at 9.9 is it worth buying."

However, some netizens held different views, believing that even if the sauce-flavored latte were discounted, sales would probably not improve significantly, because this product's reputation has been polarized since its launch. Among netizens who tried it out of curiosity, some described it as "smelling like the smell of a boss who drank too much and threw up," while others found the flavor quite good and were successfully won over by the sauce-flavored latte after one try.

Therefore, some netizens suggested that novel-tasting products like the sauce-flavored latte are more suitable for sale as short-term limited editions rather than remaining on the regular menu for the long term. Otherwise, once consumers' novelty wears off, the product will fall into slow sales, raw materials will pile up and cannot be consumed, and ultimately it will be hard to avoid the scene of near-expiry materials being poured down the drain.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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