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Regional push towards low/no sugar including new low-sugar F&N Seasons Ice Lemon Tea

By
Tan Heng Hong
-

F&N has reacted swiftly to Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong‘s call to cut sugar content in drinks during the National Day Rally speech with the new Seasons Ice Lemon Tea with reduced sugar. The RTD tea contains 36% less sugar compared with the regular Ice Lemon Tea.

Pokka reformulating juice drinks

In Singapore, Pokka said it a press release on 23 August 2017 that it has started “reformulating its Soursop and Guava juice drinks to meet Health Promotion Board’s (HPB) 12% criteria.” The two juice drinks currently have 12.3% sugar content.

Going down the sugar-free path in Indonesia

In Indonesia, we have seen RTD tea companies experimenting with the sugar-free variants for their popular jasmine tea. Thailand’s Ichitan has launched Tea Tawar, the first of its kind in Indonesia. This was followed by Sosro releasing the unsweetened version of its iconic Teh Botol.

Low sugar energy drink in Thailand

In Thailand, TCP Group recently introduced Ready Black and Ready Pink premium functional energy drinks with lower sugar.

Zero calories CSD

In the Philippines, Macay Holdings, the bottler and distributor of RC Cola, launched Rite ‘n Lite in December 2016. The Zesty Lemon, Tangy Lemon-Lime, Citrusy Orange and Creamy Rootbeer are made with Splenda, the sucralose-based artificial sweetener. The drink is free from aspartame.

What Mini Me thinks

Government anti-sugar regulations and shifting consumer choices are forcing beverage companies in Southeast Asia to increasingly innovate around low/no-sugar claims without sacrificing on taste.

Limited-edition Nescafe RTD coffee exclusively at Shell, Petronas, new Black Ice

By
Tan Heng Hong
-

Nescafe Malaysia has unveiled two new RTD coffee in September 2017. This time, the limited-edition coffee is exclusively available at petromarts – Petronas and Shell. The limited-edition Nescafe Cappuccino is sold at Shell Select, while the limited-edition Nescafe Tarik Kaw is retailed at Kedai Mesra, the petromart of the state-owned fuel company Petronas.

Nescafe’s strategy of making available a unique beverage for each channel partner is a replication of an earlier method employed by its staunch competitor Wonda for the limited-edition, 100% Arabica range – Indonesian Mandheling (Petronas), Colombian coffee (Shell) and Brazilian coffee (7-Eleven).

New Black Ice

In addition to the two limited-time offers, Nestle has launched the Nescafe Black Ice RTD coffee in the country. The black coffee has a minty icy cool aftertaste, thus befitting the name Black Ice. Black Ice is available in all leading retailers.

Tarik Kaw, Creamy Roast has highest energy

In terms of the nutritional content, the limited-edition Tarik Kaw and Creamy Roast have the highest energy (kcal) per a 100ml serving, while the Black Roast has the highest total sugar, followed by Mocha. Black Ice and Kopi O has the lowest sugar count.

What Mini Me thinks

As packaging design is important to stand out in the crowded shelf, Nescafe has the opportunity to provide the limited-edition (ie cappuccino) with a more visually stunning design. However, this opportunity is missed as the Nescafe brand bends on keeping the signature design unchanged even for products offered for a limited time only.

Ready Pink and Ready Black to keep 20-to-25-year-old awake

By
Tan Heng Hong
-

Thailand’s TCP Group, the maker of Krating Daeng and Ready (เครื่องดื่มเรดดี้) energy drinks, announced in September 2017 the launch of Ready Black and Ready Pink in 150ml glass bottle. The premium energy drinks are aimed at 20-to-25-year-old office workers and young consumers.

Sugar tax

The drink will contain less sugar as a response to the Thai government’s tax on sugary drinks which came into effect on 16 September 2017.

THB 100 million for marketing

Some THB 100 million has been spent by TCP Group to launch the two new energy drinks, said Surachai Chonglertvarawong, TCP Group’s director of marketing.

Premium energy drink to drive growth

The premium energy drink (with a retail price of at least THB 15), is set to drive the energy drink market forward. The total retail value of energy drink stood at THB 20 billion and thanks to premium product, the entire market is forecast to rise by 1-2% in 2017, reported the Bangkok Post.

In 2017, the premium energy drink segment is set to achieve retail sales of THB 1.4 billion. Nielsen data shows the Ready brand has over 50% of market share.

For him

Ready Black Honey Lemon flavour contains collagen, 40% more zinc and green tea.

For her

Ready Pink Lychee Lemon comes with collagen, 110% more vitamin C and green tea. The vitamin C helps to suppress free radicals.

The new Ready Black and Ready Pink are in a transparent natural colour compared with the existing Ready where the beverages are in red, purple and green.

Ready Boott (purple) is for fit and firm. The beverage is made from red grape juice and pomegranate juice. The key ingredients are taurine, L-arginine, caffeine (50mg) and vitamin B complex (B1, B2, B6 and B12).

Ready Goji (red) is for beautiful skin and good eyesight. The beverage contains juice from concentrate – red grape juice, goji berry juice, strawberry juice, blackcurrant juice and raspberry juice. The key ingredients are taurine and caffeine (50mg).

Ready Plus (green) is for detoxification. The drink contains grape juice from concentrate. The main ingredients are fibre, chlorophyll and guarana.

Volt energy drink in PET bottle debuts in Thailand

By
Tan Heng Hong
-

Ajethai, the producer of Big Cola in Thailand, has unveiled Volt (โวลต์) energy drink in a smaller PET bottle. The new 215ml energy drink complements the existing Big Volt (บิ๊กโวลต์) energy drink in a larger 300ml PET bottle, which was introduced in early 2017. Volt contains vitamin B3, B5 and B6. The variants comprises zinc, ginseng and goji berry.

Students, white collar (ie office worker) and blue collar (ie taxi drive) are the key target segment. The key message of Volt is the energy drink helps to provide consumers with the mental alertness to become successful in their career and life.

https://www.facebook.com/bigcolathailand/videos/vb.241938712526406/1396754170378182/?type=2&theater

The retail selling price of Volt is THB 10, which is equivalent with other energy drinks in glass bottles in Thailand.

What Mini Me thinks

It is not sure if Volt will cannabilise the sale of Big Volt in PET bottle. It does show Ajethai is going mainstream with a smaller packaging so that it has a product sitting next to leading players like M-150, Krating Deang and Carabao in glass bottles.

 

 

Singa Mas Serrr tea drink now with lychee, apple variants

By
Tan Heng Hong
-

PT Singa Mas Indonesia has added apple and lychee flavours to its Serrr range ready-to-drink tea in 200ml plastic cup. The existing flavour is jasmine. The company, a unit of PT Charoen Pokphand Indonesia Tbk, said it aims to sell 540,000 cartons of Serrr a month, equivalent to 12.9 million cups, reported Kontan business daily. Each carton contains 24 cups.

Java and Bali accounts for 65% of sales

Apart from Serr, Singa Mas also produces Fiesta RTD tea, Fruitamax juice drink and Frozen bottled water. The company derives 65% of its sales from Java and Bali and 35% from the rest of the country. Thirty percent of the sales is contributed by modern retail and 70% from the traditional trade including roadside vendors.

Production capacity

Singa Mas has the capacity to produce 720,000 cartons of Fiesta Black Tea, 600,000 cartons of Fiesta White Tea, 504,000 cartons of Serrr and 1.18 million cartons of Fruitamax (each carton contains 24 cups). The two factories are located in Gudang in Sentul, Jakarta and Cikande in East Java.

Frozen to enter Indomaret

The company said on its official Facebook page that it would enter Indomaret minimarket soon. At the moment, Frozen mineral water is available at Giant, Naga Swalayan and Fresh Mart.

https://www.facebook.com/SingaMasIndonesia/videos/vb.1640879749566613/1858113371176582/?type=2&theater

 

 

 

New Malee Nutrient almond drinks tap into goodness of plant-based protein

By
Tan Heng Hong
-

The Malee Nutrient line has been enriched with two new almond drinks containing 93% pure almond. The Almond Drink and Almond Drink Honey with Vanilla Flavour are high in vitamin B12, vitamin E and folate to promote high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or good cholesterol. The soy-free drink uses Australian almonds.

The existing Malee Nutrient line includes sweet corn milk drink and black rice and black sesame drink.

Competitors

The Malee soy-free almond drink sets it apart from Dutch Mill Soy Milk and Almond Milk and other milk-based almond drinks in the market.

Dutch Mill Soy Milk and Almond Milk

The closest equivalent to the Malee Nutrient Almond Drink is the 137 Degree Celsius Real Almond Milk sweetened with organic coconut flower nectar. This drink is free from soy and milk. It is also cane sugar- and gluten-free.

Image from 137 Degrees

The other imported competitor is Blue Diamond Almond Breeze, which entered the Thai market in June 2017.

What Mini Me thinks

The launch of the new Malee almond drink is a testament to the growing popularity of almond milk as a source of plant-based protein in Thailand. We expect to see a lot of launches in the near future as consumers diversify their protein intake from soy and dairy to almond.

To know more about Asia’s soaring demand for protein enriched foods and learn from Monde Nissin, Parabel, Meijer Consult, Axiom Foods, Fonterra Brands, Danone Nutricia and many more at Food Proteins Asia 2017 on 9-10 Nov Bangkok, Thailand.

Malee embraces leaf-shaped UHT carton for 100% premium juice

By
Tan Heng Hong
-

Malee Group PLC, known for its namesake Malee juice, announced in August 2017 that it has introduced 100% juices packed in Tetra Pak’s leaf-shaped 200ml UHT carton. The company is the first to embrace the easier to grip leaf-shaped carton in Thailand.

The new carton also comes with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification and FSC labeling, assuring consumers that the packaging material is sourced from responsibly-managed commercial plantations.

The image below is the old design of Malee 100% juice.

Kagome is a success story

Tetra Pak has cited Japan’s Kagome as a successful story of using Tetra Brik Aseptic 200 Slim Leaf to reserve the sales decline. The case study was published on Tetra Pak’s website in September 2016.

The Japanese biggest producer of juice arrested sales decline by relaunching four leading SKUs ­– Yasai Ichinichi Kore Ippon (“Vegetable for a day”) and Yasaiseikatsu (“Vegetable life”) Original, Fruity Salad and Energy Roots in Tetra Brik Aseptic 200 Slim Leaf in October 2015. They were previously in Tetra Brik Aseptic 200 Slim. The result was a 33% growth in sales in the three months post-launch compared with the previous year.

Surrounded by fresh green leaves

https://www.facebook.com/MaleeSociety/videos/10155568600743718/

Malee has also redesigned its 100% juices range with more visually appeal design to highlight the product’s freshness and flavour. Colorful half-cut fruit surrounded by fresh green leaves take the centerstage in the new packaging.

Colour coded by occasion

Each packaging comes with a colour code. The purpose is to allow consumers and distributors to identify the right choice and differentiate the products by the colour codes on the packaging. According to the report in The Nation daily, “the color scheme uses four categories: Orange Crave (orange colour) for high vitamin-C oranges; Everyday Classic (dark green colour) for regular fruits; Indulgence (purple colour) for special-selection fruits; and Vegetable (light green colour) for healthy vegetable and fruit mixes.”

The dark green colour everyday fruits includes pineapple, apple and tomato. The special occasion purple colour includes guava, peach juice (mixed with strawberry and red grape) and cherry, while the orange label covers tangerine orange and mandarin orange. The light green colour comprises vegetable mixes.

Premium 100% juice segment faces slowdown

In Thailand, three juice segments posted positive growth in value in 2016 – 100% juice (premium), less than 19% juice content (super economy) and 40%-99% juice content (medium market). The premium 100% juice segment grew by 7% in value to THB 5,195 million, accounting for 37% of the market. The overall juice market increased by a mere 1% in value in 2016 due to slowdown in consumer spend.

The info below comes from Malee Q4 2016 investor presentation.

In the first six months of 2017, the domestic juice market worsened with a 6% year-on-year fall in sales value. The two segments that were still able to post a positive growth are the super economy market and the medium market.

Malee is betting on the new packaging and marketing campaign to hopefully reverse the slide in 100% juice sales in 2017 as the 100% juice is a core component for the company.

 

Nestum 3-in-1 has a new drinkable option (updated)

By
Tan Heng Hong
-

New Nestum Cereal with Milk

In September 2017, Nestle Malaysia unveiled a new Nestum Cereal with Milk, which is the drinkable version of the popular Nestum 3-in-1 cereal.

The beverage contains blended multigrain goodness of brown rice, wheat, oat and barley. Two servings (2x225ml) provide 18% of the daily protein intake and 40% of the daily calcium requirement.

On a 100ml basis, the total sugar is 7.5g, protein is 2.5g, calcium 70mg and dietary fibre is 0.6g.

Going big on RTD beverages

Nestle Malaysia is betting big on ready-to-drink (RTD). In February 2015, the company inaugurated a CHF 66 million (RM 288 million) factory to produce RTD Milo, Nescafe and Nestle Omega Plus. The total production capacity is 120,000MT per year equivalent to 590 million bottles of Milo Nutri G.

Since then, we have seen Nestle launching Milo Nutri G in 2015 and Milo Active-Go Nutri Up in 2017. This is in addition to the numerous Nescafe innovation in the past few years.

Not available for sale yet

At the moment, Nestum Cereal with Milk is not available for sale. However, one can get hold of it by purchasing a pack of original Nestum 3-in-1 at 99Speedmart and you will be entitled to one bottle of the beverage for free.

Available in a pack of four on 11Street

However, the new Nestum Cereal with Milk is available for purchase on the Nestle official store on 11Street e-commerce site in a pack of four. The price is RM 6.70 (RM 9.60 before discount).

What Mini Me thinks

The Nestum Cereal with Milk is a portable version of Nestum 3-in-1 cereal for consumers on-the-go. When it comes to the taste, the author’s experience with the drink is the blended multigrains leave a sightly coarse feeling to the throat. But that’s just a personal opinion.

Update:

The Nestum 3-in-1 is now available nationwide.

Oreo Thins finally arrives in Thailand, Malaysia

By
Tan Heng Hong
-

Oreo Thins has finally come to Thailand and Malaysia after making its round in Singapore (August 2016), Australia (2016) and the Philippines (July 2017). Oreo Thins was first conceived in China in 2014 to arrest falling cookie sales.

The slimmer version of Oreo is meant for adults and is not designed to be twisted open or dunked. It also has fewer calories than the regular Oreo.

From Oreo fact sheet

The Oreo Thins are made in China is distributed in Singapore by Mondelez Singapore Pte Ltd, Hong Kong by Mondelez Hong Kong Limited, Brunei by Syarikat Perniagaan Malar Setia, Malaysia by Mondelez Malaysia Sales Sdn Bhd and the Philippines by Mondelez Philippines Inc.

They are currently available in stores as Vanilla Delight and Tiramisu.

In Malaysia, Mondelez is collaborating with Tesco to provide a trip to South Korea for a lucky winner. There will also be a weekly prize where the winners can bring home Instax camera.

The Oreo Thins TVC for the Southeast Asia market focuses on delivering the message of snacking for young adults, a snacking population who have outgrown the “twist, lick and dunk” classic Oreo of their childhood.

7-Eleven a key partner for Oreo Thins launch

7-Eleven is the key partner for the launch of Oreo Thins in Thailand and the Philippines.

In Thailand, Oreo Thins is available initially at 7-Eleven for THB 35 – 95g and will be soon available in hypermarket, supermarket and other leading stores in November 2017, according to the press release.

3 Horses malt-based drink will come in can packaging

By
Tan Heng Hong
-

United Dutch Breweries, showcased the can version of its non-alcoholic malt drink 3 Horses at Selangor Expo on 14-17 September 2017. The expo was held at the Setia City Convention Center in Shah Alam, Malaysia.

Can version to debut in November 2017

The canned version of 3 Horses will roll out in Malaysia around November 2017, said Three Horses Malt’s Ng Zheng at Selangor Expo. The 33ml can comprises classic, apple, lemon, peach, strawberry, pomegranate and dark malt variants. The 500ml can is only available in the classic variant.

Compared with the existing 3 Horses in the premium glass bottle, which carries a higher price, 3 Horses in can will have a lower price point and will aim at hawker stalls and other less expensive food premises, said Ng. 3 Horses in glass bottle is currently mainly catering to cafes and restaurants.

Expanding distribution channel

There are a few outlets selling 3 Horses such as Redtick Supermarket in Puchong and Cyberjaya. At the moment, 3 Horses focuses more on the foodservice channel.

In contrast to 3 Horses, Barbican, distributed by Coca-Cola Refreshments Malaysia, is widely available in supermarkets, hypermarkets and convenience stores, which shows the different approach adopted by 3 Horses and Barbican when it comes to market penetration.

Available in vegetarian restaurants

Malt-based drink is aimed largely at Muslim consumers since the consumption of alcohol is strictly prohibited by the religion. Interestingly, 3 Horses have started to become available in selected vegetarian restaurants, said Ng. The drink fits well with the religious atmosphere of vegetarian restaurants who do not promote the consumption of alcohol due to the Buddhist belief.  Since the Chinese population is the key patron of vegetarian restaurants. The availability of 3 Horses in vegetarian restaurants shows the versatility of the drink to adopt to the different consumer needs.

Strawberry flavour top choice with Malays

Among Malay consumers, strawberry and peach are the top two flavours. The popularity of strawberry is linked to strawberry being one of the popular choices for vaping and shisha.

The classic flavour is popular among the Chinese and Indian because it resembles the taste of Heineken minus the alcohol content, said Ng. Apple and lemon are also popular with the Chinese.

Light version popular

Due to strong demand, the company said it is restocking the light version, which contains lower sugar. We first reported the launch of the light version in an article in January 2017. The light version will be made available around November 2017. The light version of 3 Horses is popular with consumers who have special dietary needs or conscious of their health.

Halal logo to be included on pack

At the moment, 3 Horses does not have the halal logo on the packaging even though it has been certified as halal by the Iran-based Islamic Chamber Research & Information Center (ICRIC), which is recognised by JAKIM. But this will soon change as the halal logo will soon be included on the pack for both the glass and can formats.

Having the halal logo on the packaging will be a game changer for 3 Horses as this would enable the brand to gain better acceptance in the country especially in Kelantan and Terengganu where the population practices a more conservative version of Islam.

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