What Do Shanghai's Coffee Grades Say About Nutritional Value?

Shanghai's Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention has launched a pilot Nutritional Choice grading label for beverages, sorting freshly made drinks and packaged beverages into four levels: A, B, C, and D. Chagee and Naixue Tea are among the first four participating companies, and brands such as Starbucks are expected to follow, starting with ingredient labeling. The labels appear on store menus, mini-programs, and drink cups, with some products also showing GI values.

The grading method draws on international and domestic standards and assesses non-dairy sugars, saturated fat, trans fat, and non-sugar sweeteners together, modeled on Singapore's sugar restriction order. Pilot stores report that sales of A and B drinks have already risen. Questions remain, though: customers have raised concerns about price differences between grades and about the additives used in lower-sugar formulations.

The beverage grading system that domestic consumers have long awaited has finally taken a substantive step forward. The Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced the launch of a pilot "Nutritional Choice" grading label program for beverages, classifying freshly made drinks and packaged beverages into four health levels: A, B, C, and D. Four companies including Chagee and Naixue Tea took the lead in participating, and brands such as Starbucks will gradually follow suit. This initiative draws on the approach of Singapore's sugar restriction order, conducting a comprehensive assessment based on the content of non-dairy sugars, saturated fat, trans fat, and non-sugar sweeteners. Consumers can intuitively see the grading labels on store menus, online mini-programs, and even on drink cups, and some products also indicate GI values. Feedback from pilot stores shows that sales of A and B grade drinks have already increased, but concerns about price differences and the use of additives have also emerged.

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In the past two years, the Singaporean government, out of consideration for national health, has implemented a "beverage sugar restriction order" for packaged beverages and freshly made drinks, using concise and clear grade classifications so that consumers can tell at a glance whether various drinks are healthy. This practice has made many domestic netizens envious, and they have expressed hopes that China could follow suit.

Just a few days ago, netizens' expectations became reality! The Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it will launch a pilot "Nutritional Choice" grading label program for beverages, classifying freshly made drinks and packaged beverages through the marked four grades A, B, C, and D. At present, four companies including Chagee and Naixue Tea are participating in the pilot program first, and coffee and tea beverage brands such as Starbucks will also gradually improve afterward, starting with ingredient labeling.

It is reported that the "Nutritional Choice" beverage grading method mainly refers to domestic and international standards, taking into account the distribution of beverage nutritional components and the population's beverage intake, and comprehensively grading beverages based on the content of non-dairy sugars, saturated fat, trans fat, and non-sugar sweeteners in beverages.

At present, one of the pilot companies, Chagee, officially launched nutritional choice labels in all its Shanghai stores starting from February 29. Online mini-programs, store menus, and other channels have all been adjusted. Whether customers order online or purchase offline, they can see the nutritional grading labels of the tea drinks at a glance, and the drinks in their hands also carry the labels. In addition, some Chagee drinks have added GI values (glycemic index), providing a more scientific and intuitive basis for choice for people who need strict sugar control.

The bottled beverages of Naixue Tea in supermarkets have also all been given a "new look," with prominent nutritional grading labels making it easy for buyers to see at a glance. Naixue Tea also stated that its online mini-program and store electronic menus have already been labeled, and nutritional choice labels will also be added to menus on third-party delivery platforms afterward.

The move to grade various beverages sold on the market according to their ingredients has received support from most netizens. Contemporary people pursue scientific and healthy eating habits, and therefore want to know even more whether their daily food and drink will burden their bodies. Nutritional choice grading can help consumers better choose beverages that meet their own needs.

According to store feedback from some pilot companies, after customers learn about the nutritional choice labels, they will actively choose A and B grade drinks, which has also led to an increase in sales of A and B grade drinks in stores recently.

But netizens also have some concerns, such as whether the promotion of nutritional choice labels will lead to price gaps among drinks of different grades? Will merchants add other additives to drinks in order to make them both satisfy the public's taste preferences and meet high-level nutritional grading? ... Concerns of this kind are not few. From this point of view, although the "nutritional grading" of various beverages has begun, there is still a long way to go before consumers understand and accept it.

Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.