Healthier horizons: Sugar reduction and allergen aversion amongst major APAC demands in functional beverage sector

23-Oct-2024 - Last updated on 23-Oct-2024 at 01:46 GMT

The Asia Pacific functional beverage industry is increasingly seeing consumer demands for sugar reduction, label transparency and allergen aversion becoming commonplace to the point of necessity. ©Getty Images

The Asia Pacific functional beverage industry is increasingly seeing consumer demands for sugar reduction, label transparency and allergen aversion becoming commonplace.

Just a few years back, beverages with the likes of less-sugar and clean labels were considered more ‘in-trend’ demands by the food and beverage sector – but today, these have become much more as consumers have grown to expect these to be fulfilled in their purchases

This is particularly so when it comes to healthier product options such as functional beverages.

“So while functional beverages are definitely very much in demand now due to the health benefits e.g. 70% of the market needing immune support and gut health support, there are some aspects that have grown to be key in this market,” Tummy Buddies Co-Founder Rita Sellars told FoodNavigator-Asia.

“One of these is sugar reduction, which we definitely see a growth in demand for in markets such as Australia where this is a big concern due to childhood obesity.

“We are seeing multiple incentives in multiple countries to have sugar-free products or put a label on products with normal amounts of sugar, which shows just how important this issue is to many governments and consumers.

“The other area is in terms of labelling transparency with more consumers becoming aware about the importance of reading and understanding nutrition labels – there has been a huge movement towards this, and especially so amongst parents buying beverages for their children, so they can easily read and understand what’s in these products.”

Sellars also highlighted the importance of allergen aversion when it comes to functional beverages in APAC, especially in terms of lactose allergies and intolerances due to the high rates of these issues in the region.

“Tummy Buddies makes functional symbiotic flavoured waters for kids, and in our research we found a very big requirement in this region has to do with lactose allergies and dairy resistance as there are more children developing these issues today,” she added.

“This is the reason we decided to make our products dairy-free and lactose-free, in order to ensure we accommodated the needs of children in the Asia Pacific and Mediterranean regions.

“It has also given us the added advantage of being able to label these products as vegan and plant-based, which feeds into the plant-based trends and we can push that plant-based technology.”

Labels and logos

Another big driving force in functional beverage innovation has been rating systems, such as Australia’s Health Star Rating system and Singapore’s Nutri-Grade system, as these have been pushing beverages towards healthier formulations.

“With the introduction of these systems, we’ve always known we need to reach as close as possible to the optimal ratings as per the labelling systems in the Asia Pacific, as this is really important in influencing consumer purchase motivation,” she said.

“Australia’s HSR, Singapore’s Nutri-Grade, Malaysia and Thailand’s Healthier Choice logos – it’s really important for us to get as close to five stars, or Grade A or B, or fulfilling the criteria to be approved for those logos, and this is the same for many beverage firms.

“So overall the crucial factor is to fulfil the requirements to be considered as healthy as possible, but also make the actual product flavours delicious and make sure not to compromise on the efficacy.”