The Era of Milk Tea and Snack Stores: Who Will Pay the Price for "Mass-Produced Sweetness"?

In the summer of 2025, a middle school student in Fuzhou, Xiao Chen, was attracted by the fierce competition of "0 yuan purchase" subsidies for milk tea, ordering 3-4 cups of milk tea daily.

"There are so many delicious milk teas, not drinking feels like a waste," Xiao Chen lamented.

By mid-June, Xiao Chen, who was originally overweight, began to experience symptoms such as dry mouth and excessive thirst, with fasting blood sugar reaching 12.3mmol/L, more than twice the normal upper limit, and was ultimately diagnosed with diabetes.

With hundreds of millions in subsidies from three major takeaway platforms launching a free milk tea war, more consumers were immersed in this low-cost, even zero-cost, celebration of sweet drinks.

Behind all the excessive sweetness, there are always hidden costs to pay.

Although the "0 yuan purchase" for milk tea has cooled down under the mediation of the takeaway war.

It cannot be ignored that tens of thousands of chain tea and snack stores are penetrating ordinary consumers' daily lives with more sugary food and drinks in a cheaper, trendier, and more accessible way through supply chain intensification, location competition, and downward expansion of economies of scale.

These stores are particularly adept at "intensively surrounding" the entrances of numerous primary and secondary schools, and the high-frequency consumption of milk tea and snacks is gradually becoming a habit for teenagers after school.

Humans naturally find it hard to resist the pleasure of sweetness; the dopamine stimulation brought by sweetness is indeed making the blooming milk tea and snack shops a visible phenomenon of the largest scale in the "addiction economy."

However, the threat of excessive sugar intake on residents' health has long been a consensus in the global health system—

Excessive sugar can stimulate blood sugar fluctuations, easily leading to insulin resistance, and the ensuing obesity, metabolic syndrome, and accumulation of visceral fat are the beginnings of many chronic diseases in humans;

Once there is a collective blood sugar control issue, it not only poses health risks to society but also adds pressure to an already strained healthcare system.

Yet many young people "living in the moment" find it hard to realize what consequences come from "being able to drink a sweet milk tea for just a few yuan or even for free every day."

This precisely echoes the fable by Austrian writer Stefan Zweig in "The Royal Game":

"At that time, still too young, unaware that all the gifts of fate had already been secretly priced."

As tea and snack shops continue to "mass-produce sweetness" under the model of thousands of stores, who will ultimately bear the long-term social health costs behind this?

This article attempts to explore this question and seek answers.

Thousands of Stores Celebration

If we rewind five years, people might have found it hard to imagine the scale of chain tea and snack shops developing to the extent it has today.

By the end of 2024, just one store of MIXUE Ice City boasts over 46,000 locations, equivalent to the total of the second to seventh places in the industry.

The expansion of tens of thousands of stores has helped MIXUE Ice City achieve a revenue of 24.83 billion yuan with a growth rate of over 22% this year, with total beverage sales reaching a staggering 9 billion cups in a year, equivalent to more than 6 cups consumed per person nationwide Relying on rapid store expansion, large-scale supply chain management, and intensive and digitalized efficient operations, MIXUE Ice City has maintained a ROE growth rate of over 30% for three consecutive years from 2022 to 2024.

With a robust business model and impressive performance validation, this world's largest fresh tea beverage company has become a darling of the capital market since its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in March this year.

The IPO saw over 5,000 times oversubscription, a 1.34 times increase in share price over 63 trading days post-listing, and a market value exceeding 100 billion, solidifying its status as the "Snow King."

In a sense, the success of MIXUE Ice City also represents a cross-section of the current "ten-thousand-store economic model."

Based on the validation of the single-store model, it rapidly opened new stores with the help of capital to occupy favorable terrain, and then controlled operational costs and improved efficiency through large-scale management, becoming a tried-and-true paradigm in the new tea beverage and snack industries.

The investment in beverage stores is small, with low entry barriers and a high degree of product standardization, making the single-store model highly replicable. The initial investment often does not exceed one million, with a payback period typically not exceeding two years, attracting a large number of small and medium franchisees.

By the end of 2024, the number of chain tea beverage stores for Gu Ming, AUNTEA JENNY, and Cha Bai Dao has exceeded 8,000, while the stores for Shu Yi Shao Xian Cao, Tian La La, Yi He Tang, and Ba Wang Cha Ji have also surpassed 5,000.

As of July 15, 2025, narrow-door restaurant data shows that the total number of stores in the "milk tea beverage" sector has reached 426,300; according to iiMedia Consulting, the market size of China's new-style tea beverages has reached 354.72 billion yuan in 2024.

Under the fierce competition of delivery subsidies, the reason tea beverage brands can respond to e-commerce platforms is related to the rise in industry concentration under the franchise model.

A similar phenomenon of the ten-thousand-store economy is unfolding at an even faster expansion rate in the bulk snack industry.

In June 2024, the number of stores under the parent company of "Hao Xiang Lai," Wancheng Group, was still less than 7,000, but in less than a year, this number rapidly grew to 15,000 by March this year.

This means an average of 26 stores need to open each day.

The effectiveness of the bulk model lies precisely in the attractiveness of large quantities and low-priced products.

Through rapid store expansion, the brand's upstream procurement bargaining power has been enhanced, and it can even produce private label products through the currently low production and logistics costs, further consolidating the low-price advantage on the product side.

As the two leading brands in the bulk snack sector, Wancheng Group and Ming Ming Hen Mang currently have a total number of stores exceeding 15,000.

If we include mid-tier players like You Ming and Ai Ling Shi with around 2,000 stores, the total industry scale has reached no less than 40,000 stores.

As a large low-cost entrant, the bulk model has even led to a rapid reshuffling of the channel structure in the snack industry.

A survey by CICC and Jia Shi Consulting shows that in 2024, bulk snack stores accounted for as much as 37% of China's snack consumption channels; while traditional supermarkets and e-commerce channels accounted for only 20%, and their share is continuously shrinking The expansion of stores has directly led to a surge in revenue.

In 2024, Wanchen Group achieved nearly 31.8 billion yuan in revenue, doubling the previous year's growth, causing the company's stock price to increase nearly sevenfold from the second half of 2024 to the present. The two leading companies formed through integration, Mingming Hen Mang, achieved nearly 40 billion yuan in revenue with a growth rate of 119%.

Once the core locations are secured and consumer mindsets gradually form, core flagship products become indispensable in social life. Leading brands with a significant scale advantage are bound to demonstrate higher operational efficiency, profitability, and capital returns.

The ultimate destination of this ten-thousand-store economy is destined to be a carnival for capital.

The Territory of Sugar

Whether it is chain tea drinks or bulk snacks, "product quality" is a necessary guarantee for brands to continue expanding their stores.

However, behind the delicious milk tea and tasty snacks lies a hidden commonality that is easily overlooked: they mostly belong to sugary food and beverage products.

Sugary beverages and the sweetness behind them are the underlying reasons why chain-made tea can quickly conquer the taste buds of young people; among nearly 2,000 SKUs in bulk snacks, the vast majority of product ingredient lists widely contain sources of sweetness such as white sugar, glucose powder, and fructose syrup.

"Whether it's milk tea or snack stores, the fundamental reason for rapid store expansion is the ordinary person's preference for sugar and sweetness," said an investor in the consumer business of a PE firm in Beijing. "Looking at the best-selling SKUs of most tea drinks, it's clear that what people love is not tea, but sweet milk tea."

For the booming chain tea drinks and bulk snacks, the extreme satisfaction of consumers' dopamine from added sugar and its sweetness seems to be the key leverage point for achieving a scale of ten thousand stores today.

Taking the ready-made tea drink industry as an example, according to the disclosed cup output statistics from Xinfeng Comprehensive, the five major tea chain brands, including MIXUE, Bawang Chaji, Guming, AUNTEA JENNY, and Chabaidao, had a cup output of as high as 14 billion cups in just one year in 2024.

According to a sampling test conducted by the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention on three categories of milk tea from the top 13 ready-made chain brands, for a 500mL medium cup of milk tea, the detected sugar content without added sugar, with half sugar, and with full sugar was approximately 17 grams, 29 grams, and 40 grams, respectively.

If conservatively calculated based on 14 billion cups and the 29g sugar content for half sugar, the aforementioned five major chain tea drinks indirectly sold a total of 406,000 tons of sugar in one year.

In 2023, the consumer population for ready-made tea drinks in China was about 320 million people; the consumption of 406,000 tons of sugar means that each person consumes at least an additional 1.3 kilograms of sugar per year on average.

However, this is just an apparent estimated conclusion; the actual hidden sugar that consumers digest each year may be even more.

The Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention once conducted sampling tests on three categories of milk tea from the top 13 ready-made chain brands. The results showed that even milk tea samples labeled "no added sugar" had over 90% of the measured actual total sugar content exceeding 25 grams.

After all, compared to standard bottled beverages that provide nutritional information and ingredient lists, the sugar composition and content in ready-made tea drinks are more ambiguous, and management is more chaotic Even though a few brands actively disclose their ingredients, the labeling often remains vague with terms like "carbohydrate" content, making it difficult for consumers to know the actual amount added.

In addition to direct sugars as additives, there are also hidden sugars present in fruits, small ingredients, and dairy products. A "no added sugar" cheese milk cap fruit tea may not necessarily have a lower sugar content than a milk tea with a small amount of syrup added.

A study published in 2023 in the Journal of Food Industry titled "Analysis and Discussion of Sugar Content in Freshly Made Milk Tea" also pointed out that some sampled brands showed actual sugar content higher than the labeled values, with cases where the actual values were even lower than the labeled values.

It can be expected that as the industry continues to expand, the total amount of sugar supplied to society by the "ten-thousand-store economy" may continue to rise.

The phenomenon of nationwide sugar consumption has even driven growth in the domestic sugar raw material market.

In 2024, the market size for sugar raw materials (granulated sugar, sweeteners, fructose syrup) in China's freshly made tea beverage sector is projected to reach 9.8 billion yuan, an increase of 63% compared to 2020.

Cheshi Consulting believes that the compound annual growth rate of the sugar raw material market will not slow down due to the increase in the base, and it is expected that by 2028, the total scale of all categories of freshly made tea beverages in China will reach 546.6 billion yuan, driving the demand for sugar raw materials to grow to 15.8 billion yuan.

Addiction Economy

Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, pointed out that "the best companies are those that make users dependent on them, even if they may not realize this dependency themselves."

Many investors are quite fascinated by businesses with addictive qualities.

The cash flow generated by high stickiness, high frequency, and anti-cyclical characteristics is continuous and very stable.

As former Dow Jones chairman Hugh Johnson said, if the stock market crashes, please take the time to buy American tobacco companies.

"In tough times, people will give up many necessities, but they will never quit their bad habits."

Like tobacco and alcohol, high DAU mobile games, and short videos, the sugar business has addictive qualities.

In the resource-scarce Stone Age, the sweetness of sugar represented a signal for restoring blood sugar and quickly replenishing energy, which deeply ingrained humanity's preference for sugar in our genes.

Adequate sugar intake can activate the dopamine reward pathway, leading to feelings of pleasure in the brain.

Research by P Rada, N M Avena, and others found that rats binge-eating sucrose intermittently showed a significant increase in dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens to 130% of baseline during each binge, activating the pleasure circuit and providing immediate satisfaction.

This neural response is similar to drug addiction—substance abuse also increases dopamine in the nucleus accumbens.

Under the pressures of modern society, sugar is undoubtedly the most accessible and inexpensive stress reliever for consumers.

The aforementioned research indicates that after stopping sucrose intake, rats exhibited anxiety behaviors similar to drug withdrawal, further supporting the association between sugar intake and addictive neural responses.

Since the pleasure generated by sugar lasts for a short time, disappearing by more than 80% after 5 minutes, individuals quickly fall into a "pleasure gap" after a brief moment of enjoyment, driving repeated consumption.

Under the diminishing marginal utility of "dopamine resistance," when receptors become less sensitive, more sugar and stronger stimuli are needed to achieve the same feelings Although sugar raw materials are cheap in the modern food industry, through layers of packaging for beverages and snacks, it is indeed easier to achieve large-scale sales and repurchases, gradually building its own brand and channel moat.

Coca-Cola and others have spent a century establishing a bottling plant network globally, outsourcing the heavy asset production and sales links, selling "happy water" to the world.

These giants have become the biggest beneficiaries in the sugar trading business chain.

The same story is now happening in freshly made tea drinks and bulk snacks.

Many large-scale chain tea businesses today, like MIXUE Ice City, operate a supply chain business that "sells materials" to franchisees: outsourcing production to milk tea stores to minimize transportation and packaging costs, while achieving more profit margins through upstream integration and intensive cost management.

From 2022 to the third quarter of 2024, the factory area of MIXUE Ice City rapidly increased from 168,000 square meters to 790,000 square meters.

By building its own raw material factories and cold chain storage systems, MIXUE Ice City has achieved self-production of major materials, including syrups, reducing syrup costs by more than 30% compared to purchasing, and even achieving a 50% cost reduction in packaging bottles for molasses and fruit syrup.

Relying on a network of over 40,000 stores, the extreme efficiency of the supply chain has brought the price of its freshly made tea drinks down to under 10 yuan, leading to competition for the pre-packaged beverage market.

Thus, the supply chain magic represented by MIXUE Ice City has become a benchmark for the industry to emulate, perhaps with only one goal:

Lower prices, sell more milk tea.

In terms of suitable scenarios, it is easier to see teenagers with weak self-control who are still in the education phase flocking around campuses, engaging with these milk tea and snack stores in a "two-way rush."

In third and fourth-tier cities with relatively low rental costs, it is common to see small and medium-sized schools surrounded by numerous chain milk tea and bulk snack stores, with students queuing to consume, creating a bustling scene.

This phenomenon is drawing attention from some local departments.

For example, the "Implementation Plan for the 'Weight Management Year' Activity in Henan Province (2024-2026)" led by the Henan Provincial Health Commission proposes to "avoid selling high-salt, high-sugar, and high-fat foods within 500 meters of campuses."

"Because minors have weak self-control, tobacco shops and internet cafes have always had restrictions, but there has been no unified constraint on the issue of milk tea and snack stores clustering at school gates, which has indeed raised concerns among parents who are stricter about their children's lives," said a former management staff member from a high school in a northern prefecture-level city.

Recently adult college students have also become a key target for chain stores.

According to a statistic from Yiguan Commercial at the end of 2024 on Narrow Door Restaurant Eye data, 18 freshly made tea drink stores have opened over 6,600 campus stores.

For example, BaWang Tea has opened stores at nearly 200 universities nationwide, including Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Wuhan University, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. As of June 11, 2025, the number of members at BaWang Tea campus stores has exceeded 2 million Other data shows that within a 500-meter radius of universities nationwide, the store coverage rate of MIXUE Ice City reaches 83%, far exceeding other tea brands. For example, there are 12 MIXUE Ice City stores distributed within 3 kilometers of Zhengzhou University, with an average distance of less than 300 meters.

The extreme optimization of the supply chain continuously lowers the overall costs to align with the low-price strategy. The popularity of low prices further drives the expansion of the consumer base, while also diluting the inherent operating costs as the sugar addiction business radiates to a larger scope.

This efficiency-first supply-side reform may ultimately lead to one result:

Chain enterprises earn more money, and people will eventually consume more sugar.

"Chronic Poison"

The "addiction" to milk tea or snacks has now become a common phenomenon.

A white-collar worker in Beijing, Guan Lin, stated that she consumes at least 2 cups of "no extra sugar" milk tea every day.

"I probably drank about 300 cups of milk tea last year. This year may be even more," Guan Lin said.

Guan Lin's 2023 Meituan beverage order records

If "addiction" simply becomes a part of human daily life, it may not be objectionable.

The key contradiction lies in the fact that excessive sugar intake is becoming a major culprit harming the health of residents in today's society.

High doses of sugar from sugary drinks like milk tea and high-sugar snacks like chocolate increase the burden on insulin, leading to various issues such as visceral fat generation, insulin resistance, and weight gain, ultimately resulting in metabolic dysfunction.

Taking sugary drinks as an example, a paper published earlier this year by researchers Laura Lara-Castor and others from the University of Washington analyzed dietary database data from 184 countries in 1990 and 2020, finding that 2.2 million new cases of type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million cases of cardiovascular diseases in 2020 could be attributed to sugary drinks, accounting for 9.8% and 3.1% of the incidence, respectively.

In addition, one of the culprits of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is also sugary drinks.

According to a study by a research team at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, which surveyed 3,739 American adults aged 20 and older, there is a positive correlation between sugary drink intake and the risk of NAFLD.

Among them, the relative risk of developing NAFLD increased by 14%, 26%, and 53% for those consuming low doses (<1 cup/week), medium doses (1-6 cups/week), and high doses (≥7 cups/week) of sugary drinks, respectively.

The "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents 2022" recommends that adults should not exceed 50g of sugar intake per day, and it is best to keep it below 25g.

According to the sampling results from the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the sugar content of 500mL drinks with no extra sugar and five points of sugar is 17g and 29g, respectively.

This means that just 2 cups of "no extra sugar" or 1 cup of "five points of sugar" milk tea could exceed the recommended daily sugar intake for adults, potentially leading to a significant increase in health risks It should be noted that this is just 1-2 cups of milk tea, combined with snacks and common sugars in daily diets, the total sugar intake of consumers may be significantly higher.

High-sugar foods can impose a considerable health burden on the organs and the brain. Even short-term excessive intake can have negative effects on the body that far exceed expectations.

According to a study published in Nature Metabolism, more than a dozen healthy men showed a 20% increase in liver fat content after just 5 days of consuming a high-calorie diet, including chocolate bars, and there were also short-term enhancements in brain insulin response.

A large amount of sweets causes a rapid rise in blood sugar, and long-term excessive secretion of insulin leads to decreased sensitivity, which can result in insulin resistance.

With the price reductions and increased availability of sugary foods and drinks in the chain industry, insulin resistance is becoming a national health concern in our country.

According to a survey released by Fuwai Hospital this year, the crude prevalence rate of insulin resistance in our country is as high as 39.1%, an increase of nearly 10 percentage points compared to data from 20 years ago, meaning that at least 1 in 3 adults may have insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance is almost always accompanied by obesity.

According to statistics from the National Health Commission, more than half of adult residents in our country are overweight or obese, with overweight rates for children and adolescents aged 6-17 and under 6 years old reaching 19% and 10.4%, respectively.

Insulin resistance and obesity disrupt metabolism, leading to abnormalities in blood sugar and blood lipids; they are significant triggers for various chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

With tea drink subsidies everywhere and the "zero-cost purchase" promotions on takeaway platforms, the frequency of sugar consumption per capita has quietly increased, further amplifying the health risks for residents.

Since the beginning of this year, there have been numerous cases suspected of being diagnosed with diabetes and other diseases due to excessive consumption of milk tea.

According to Hongxing News, in July of this year, Ningbo University Affiliated People's Hospital treated a 38-year-old obese man. This patient frequently ordered milk tea as a meal replacement to take advantage of the promotions on takeaway platforms, leading to a sharp reduction in regular meal intake. Within just two months, his weight dropped to 75 kilograms, and he exhibited symptoms of excessive thirst and urination. Upon examination, his fasting blood sugar reached 15mmol/L, 2.45 times the normal upper limit, and he was ultimately diagnosed with diabetes.

According to Dr. Gong Weikun, head of the endocrinology department at the hospital, three similar cases have been treated in the past week, all involving young men who had a long-term habit of consuming sugary drinks, irregular lifestyles, and sudden weight loss accompanied by severe thirst.

Some doctors have indicated that while there is no direct causal relationship between excessive milk tea consumption and diabetes in the short term, there is indeed a theoretical correlation.

An endocrinologist from a top-tier hospital in Shanghai told Xinfeng: "Recently, we have found that some patients have a long-term habit of drinking milk tea. We initially suspect that the long-term excessive intake of milk tea has led to diabetes or insulin resistance. However, since these patients often binge eat, it is difficult to attribute it entirely to milk tea, but the large consumption of milk tea does increase the risk of such diseases."

**This means that the low-price competition resonating between the economy of numerous stores and the takeaway battle may not only exert an extrusive impact on traditional offline entities but also that the cheaper or even zero-cost supply of sugary tea drinks may pose long-term health risks to consumers **

Whose Cost

The capital prosperity of tea and snack shops reaching tens of thousands of stores is actually built on the urgent and severe situation of the rising obesity problem among residents in our country.

Obesity and weight management have become social challenges that our health authorities are addressing.

In June 2024, the National Health Commission, in conjunction with multiple departments, released the "Implementation Plan for the 'Weight Management Year' Activity," marking the first time our country has implemented a "Weight Management Year" initiative.

The plan aims to significantly enhance the public's awareness and skills in weight management over approximately three years, promote healthier lifestyles, gradually form a favorable situation where the entire population participates and benefits from weight management, and improve the abnormal weight conditions of certain groups.

In April of this year, the National Health Commission and the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly issued a notice encouraging qualified tertiary general hospitals, children's hospitals, and traditional Chinese medicine hospitals to set up weight management outpatient services to provide comprehensive health management for key populations such as those who are overweight or obese.

Currently, the supply of sugary foods and drinks based on low prices and internal competition not only quickly exerts an extruding effect on industry profits but may also have negative external impacts on residents' weight health management.

Lower prices and larger consumption not only increase consumers' health risks but may also become a hidden burden on the entire social health payment system.

Long-term excessive sugar intake can lead to metabolic disorders akin to a domino effect, with insulin resistance being the first to fall.

As the core pathological mechanism of metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance can lead to complications such as diabetes, tumors, cardiovascular diseases, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

For instance, insulin resistance is closely linked to breast cancer.

According to a study disclosed by the American Cancer Society, a follow-up of 1,328 breast cancer cases over nearly 20 years found that higher insulin resistance in postmenopausal women was significantly associated with increased breast cancer incidence and significantly elevated risk of death after breast cancer.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

One of the most common risks is the high incidence of diabetes.

According to research from the Chronic Disease Center of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of diabetes patients in the country reached 233 million in 2023, more than doubling from 88.48 million in 2005, with the age-standardized prevalence rate soaring from 7.53% to 13.67%, and an average annual growth rate of 3.36%.

Under high-sugar food and drink conditions, the continuous amplification of related risks exacerbates social costs.

According to the International Diabetes Federation, China's total diabetes expenditure will reach 12 trillion yuan in 2024, an increase of over 50% compared to 2019, ranking second globally, only behind the United States.

Some cities are already "overwhelmed."

According to a research team from Fudan University's School of Public Health tracking about 45,000 diabetes patients in a provincial capital city in eastern China, the average annual diabetes costs for this group increased from 9,285 yuan in 2014 to around 15,000 yuan in 2019, a growth of over 60% in four years.

In 2019, the per capita expenditure accounted for more than 10% of the city's per capita GDP.

Additionally, a research team from Xi'an Jiaotong University's School of Public Health predicts that the prevalence of diabetes among adults in our country will rise from 8.2% in 2020 to 9.7% in 2030, with total diabetes costs exceeding 30 trillion yuan by 2030, accounting for 1.69% of GDP during the same period, and the increase in this cost may exceed GDP growth This means that if no intervention is made, as the number of patients with chronic diseases increases, overall medical expenses may rise geometrically.

For a medical insurance system that already requires strict control of expenditures, this is undoubtedly adding insult to injury.

Behind the high profits of companies like MIXUE ICE CITY, which earn billions annually, lies a transfer of health costs compensated by the public medical insurance system—every cent of "sweet profit" earned by brands is, in fact, at the hidden cost of the surging medical insurance burden on society.

The Challenge of Sugar Control

The trend of "sugar control" has not gone unnoticed in the milk tea industry, but the proactive approach to sugar control in freshly made tea beverages has not been smooth.

Sugar in milk tea not only provides sweetness but also plays a role in balancing ingredients, enhancing the aroma of tea, milk, and the freshness of fruits.

Losing sugar as a carrier would significantly compromise the flavor stability of milk tea.

Therefore, whether from the supply chain or product side, sugar control is a systemic project that affects everything.

One approach is to comprehensively reduce the added sugar content in products.

In September 2023, Cha Bai Dao announced a reduction in sugar for more than ten of its products, decreasing the amount of sugar added during the production of pearls, taro balls, sago, and other ingredients, while also reducing the extra sugar used in the product-making process.

After the brand adjusted the sugar addition standards, the sweetness of the seven-point sugar level dropped to around five points. This means that if consumers maintain their original ordering habits, their sugar intake can be reduced by about 30%.

Six months later, AUNTEA JENNY also launched a similar strategy, reducing sugar in three products, including mung bean milk ice and peach pomelo.

However, this approach has not been widely adopted.

Industry insiders believe that new tea drink consumers have developed a "want both" mentality regarding taste and health: they expect beverages to be healthy but do not want to sacrifice the pleasure of drinking "sweet water."

The second approach is to use non-sugar and calorie-free sweeteners to ensure sweetness.

This is currently a more mainstream method of sugar control.

According to incomplete statistics, at least seven brands, including HEYTEA and NAYUKI, offer consumers the option to "add 1 yuan" to switch to sweeteners.

However, many leading brands have not yet joined this trend.

The fundamental reason is that sweeteners not only increase costs but also provide limited short-term commercial returns, making it difficult to motivate brands to participate.

Chen Shengjian, a senior R&D professional in the tea beverage industry, believes that if the new tea beverage industry deviates from fixed SOP formulas for flavor innovation, it may face issues of high costs and waste during mass production and manufacturing. Therefore, some brands tend to be conservative in providing zero-calorie sugar options based on supply chain management and profit considerations.

"Chain brands prioritize ensuring a large and stable supply to maintain extremely low prices," Chen Shengjian believes.

This means that the fundamental reason some brands cannot provide sweeteners is still their demand for extreme low-cost efficiency.

Lynn, the marketing manager of the sweetener brand Ai Le Tian under Jin He Industrial, told Xin Feng that when tea beverage brands develop reduced-sugar products, the primary focus remains on flavor compatibility "Aile Sweet has a lot of collaborations with leading brands in the industry. However, each brand's tea and milk are different, and suppliers need to continuously optimize the ingredient ratio scheme through the blending of multiple sweeteners, making the taste infinitely close to sucrose," Lynn said.

It is precisely for this reason that the cost of customizing each SKU for tea brands has increased.

However, Lynn also stated that not all brands will actively promote this investment.

The reason is that the existence of sugar substitute products implicitly negates previous formulas, making it difficult for brands to 'self-revolutionize.'

Lynn explained, "Brands are reluctant to let consumers think that existing conventional products are not healthy enough, and they also want to avoid creating potential controversies for the reputation of new products."

Although leading brands have begun to promote research and development upgrades in the supply chain based on sugar control needs, for the industry as a whole, this "sugar control" is difficult to directly drive price increases or customer growth, and even the support for "health marketing" is quite limited.

Against the backdrop of sugar-free tea becoming a major category of bottled beverages, the acceptance of "0-calorie sugar" among consumers of freshly made tea drinks is still low.

According to the "2023 New Tea Beverage Research Report," even in first-tier cities, the proportion of consumers actively choosing to replace with 0-calorie sugar is only 5%, while consumers in lower-tier markets are even more fond of sweetness.

This may be due to consumers' concerns about the taste and even safety of sugar substitutes.

The World Health Organization stated in guidelines released in 2023: do not use non-sugar sweeteners to control weight. The artificial sweetener aspartame used in Diet Coke has been classified as a Group 2 carcinogen by the WHO, while erythritol, a natural sweetener, has been linked to a high incidence of cardiovascular diseases in one study.

However, some professionals believe that compared to traditional white sugar and high fructose corn syrup, choosing sugar substitutes is still a better solution.

"Some sugar substitutes have appeared relatively late, and the related risk studies are actually controversial. In contrast, the harms of sucrose and fructose are well established," said a doctor from a top-tier hospital in Beijing. "From the perspective of calories, glycemic index, insulin stimulation, and oral health, if one must consume sugar, sugar substitutes are likely better than traditional sugars."

"The current problem is that sugar substitutes, as a new thing, are easily scrutinized for risks, while the unhealthiness of traditional sugar is often overlooked, amplifying societal prejudice against sugar substitutes, which makes people feel that traditional sugar is fine and consume it excessively. This is contrary to the pursuit of health," the doctor said.

However, the instability of the fresh-making process may weaken the actual effect of brands "sugar substituting."

Chen Shengjian told Xinfeng that due to the automation equipment in the industry still being in the popularization stage, a large part of the milk tea output depends on the operators' skills. "Different people making milk tea according to the same recipe may produce completely different 'taste and flavor.'"

Phoenix News once conducted a sampling evaluation of zero-calorie sugar from five tea brands and found that HEYTEA, Lele Tea, and AUNTEA JENNY all had actual sugar content higher than the "standard sugar" versions.

Among them, Lele Tea's sucrose content not only did not decrease but increased, raising questions about the operational standards in stores

The Question of Solutions

The high health risks associated with high-sugar food and beverages are already well-known, but compared to tobacco and alcohol, the transmission chain of its impact is longer, leading to the social externalities being easily overlooked by various sectors of society.

Currently, the Chinese government has adopted a "dual approach" from both the enterprise and patient sides to alleviate the pressure on public health caused by high sugar intake.

In 2024, Shanghai will take the lead in piloting a "nutritional choice" grading label for beverages (A, B, C, D, with the recommendation level decreasing progressively), which comprehensively reflects the content of sugar, fat, and other components in beverages.

However, to date, only a few new tea brands such as Bawang Chaji and NAYUKI have labeled their beverage products according to the A, B, C, D grading system for sugar content, while more new tea shops like Luckin Coffee, MIXUE ICE CITY, and Jasmine Milk Tea have not followed suit.

China's mandatory labeling regulations for sugar content in pre-packaged food and beverages are also being initiated.

In April of this year, the National Health Commission released a new version of the "National Food Safety Standard for Pre-packaged Food Nutrition Labeling," expanding the range of mandatory nutrients from "1+4" (i.e., energy, protein, fat, carbohydrates, sodium) to "1+6," with the two new items being sugar and saturated fat (acid).

However, this is still limited to pre-packaged foods, and there are no mandatory requirements for freshly made beverages.

Overall, the current policy still intervenes in sugar intake mainly by encouraging companies to actively reduce sugar content, but due to the low cost of sugar intake, relying solely on consumer self-control is clearly insufficient to combat addictive beverages like milk tea, and companies also lack the motivation to implement more sugar reduction measures.

Referring to the experiences of mature market countries or regions, sugar taxes and reducing the promotion of high-sugar food and beverages are also important supplementary measures.

Many countries impose additional taxes on sugary beverages like milk tea to offset the social payment gap in resident health management.

For example, countries like the UK and Mexico have already imposed sugar taxes on sugary beverages, mainly divided into two methods based on beverage volume and sugar content, to guide companies to modify their formulas and reduce the sugar content of their products.

As one of the earliest countries to impose a sugar tax, Mexico began taxing sugary beverages in 2014, with a tax rate of 1 peso per liter, which is based on the volume of the beverage.

This method of taxing based on beverage volume is relatively direct and simple, as it directly raises the cost of purchasing sugary beverages, thereby suppressing consumers' desire to buy sugary drinks to some extent. In the year following its implementation, the total purchase volume of sugary beverages in Mexico decreased by nearly 40% year-on-year.

The UK implements a tiered tax rate based on sugar content: beverages containing 5-8 grams of sugar per milliliter are taxed £0.18 per liter, while beverages with more than 8 grams of sugar per 100 milliliters are taxed £0.24 per liter.

Such measures have also achieved significant results.

According to the UK Public Health Agency, the sugar content in retail and manufacturing taxed beverages decreased by 43.7% in 2019 compared to 2015, with total sugar sales reducing by 35.4%.

Although the sugar tax can bring about a certain reduction in sugar intake, challenges may still exist in practical implementation due to the different levels of development between China and mature market countries Zhai Tianchang, an assistant researcher at the Institute of Rural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinfeng that the high level of sugar intake is mainly due to differences in dietary habits under varying stages of development, meaning that developed countries entered the stage of abundant food supply earlier. Because human preference for sweets is established, residents of developed countries formed high sugar intake dietary habits earlier, resulting in a relatively higher overall sugar intake level compared to China.

However, for China, due to differences in development stages, the overall sugar intake level is currently relatively low, so directly borrowing the sugar tax policy from developed countries may not be entirely applicable.

At the same time, converting the sugar tax into investments in healthy foods may help reduce resistance to the sugar tax to some extent.

"The investment from the sugar tax is mainly aimed at reducing the health risks associated with high sugar (high calorie) dietary habits, such as health investments (including increasing calorie consumption through exercise, health management, etc.). Investment in the research and development of healthy foods can also be considered, mainly focusing on alternatives to sugar, such as low-calorie sweeteners (the newly introduced allulose is an example)," Zhai Tianchang pointed out.

Some countries have taken measures to prohibit beverage companies from advertising high-sugar drinks on television and other media platforms.

Singapore categorizes pre-packaged beverages into four levels from A (most healthy) to D (least healthy) based on sugar content and saturated fat content. D-level beverages are prohibited from advertising in mass media such as television and the internet, and cannot sponsor events.

As a result, many companies that did not participate in nutritional labeling in China have labeled their products for sugar content in Singapore.

Luckin Coffee is one such example, where its popular "Coconut Latte" is labeled as D-level in Singapore, but no labeling is done domestically.

Singapore Coconut Latte product image China Coconut Latte product image

In this context, when health policies remain at the level of advocacy, companies often lack the motivation for substantial reform. Only when social consensus and external regulation form a synergy can the self-reinforcing cycle of high-sugar dietary addiction be interrupted.

Behind the scale myth of "ten thousand stores" is the extreme extraction of efficiency and profit by capital. The lean supply chain, saturated coverage of locations, and prices approaching zero have jointly created this commercial feast of "mass-produced sweetness."

However, the bill for the feast is quietly being paid in another form:

It extracts every bit of thin profit from the supply chain while quietly stuffing the risk of obesity into children's backpacks; it calculates the maximization of per square meter store efficiency while allowing the shadow of metabolic syndrome to spread among the population; it chases the commercial myth of thousands of stores opening simultaneously while lightly setting aside the heavy burden on the healthcare system in the future.

Those cheap sweetness and easily obtained happiness ultimately come at the cost of health and as a gamble for the future—this "sweet era" built on scale has never been a free gift, but rather a debt that a generation must slowly repay with their bodies (Zheng Jiayi, intern Yao Tong also contributed to this article)

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