Boba Boom - Part 2: Rise of the Health-Consciousness

Back in November 2019, Khor Reports studied the bubble tea (Boba) trend in Malaysia and the sugar level in the beverages. Click here to read it.

Momentum Works and qlub recently published a report, “Bubble Tea in Southeast Asia”. It is estimated that the 2021 market size for Boba in South East Asia alone is US$3.66 billion. Clearly, this Boba trend is not dying out anytime soon. With newer brands launching, this is still an ever-growing market.

Khor Reports previously tracked the sugar level of beverages in Malaysia and found out that one serving of bubble tea is double the amount of the daily recommended sugar intake. In 2019, 1 out of 5 adults in Malaysia has diabetes and about 3.9 million people are above the age of 18. This is a worrying trend. The prevalence of diabetes is also an upward movement from 2011 to 2019. So, what measures can be taken to tackle this issue?  

Source: Malaysia Ministry of Health

Looking at Singapore, the Health Minister recently announced that Food & Beverages (F&B) outlets preparing freshly brewed beverages are to include a nutritional label on their menu to indicate the sugar level of the beverages and certain beverages are not prohibited from being advertised. Beverages falling under Grade C or D, such as Boba, will be affected by the advertising prohibition as most of their beverages have high sugar content.

Source: Singapore Health Promotion Board

As consumers become more health conscious, they may soon start opting for beverages with Grade A or B. Shops will need to revamp their menu or change the amount of sugar used in their beverages in order to attract those consumers. To reverse the trend of diabetes incidences, Malaysia should adopt this policy to encourage its citizens to choose healthier beverages option.

Wong Ivan, Guest Writer | 4 Oct 2022

Sugar, Sugar: A Quick Revisit

Some good news on the healthy living front: a recent study from Oxford University has found that between 2015 and 2018, the total amount of sugar sold from soft drinks per capita per day in the United Kingdom has declined by 30%, with the average sugar content of soft drinks dropping from 4.4g of sugar per 100 ml in 2015 to 2.9g/100ml in 2018. Following the introduction of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) in April 2018, which affects soft drinks with a sugar content of 5g or more per 100ml, sales volume of soft drinks subjected by the tax has halved while that of low- and zero-sugar drinks collectively jumped by 40%.

While the research cautioned against using its results as an assessment of the SDIL, it did give it credit for helping accelerate the shift in soft drink sugar content, especially since it observed no changes to the sugar content of soft drinks excluded from SDIL; anything beyond that is attributed to changes in consumer preference and purchasing behaviour.

Observers note the SDIL or “sugar tax” impact was 73% of total sugar reduction was due to reformulation and new lower-sugar drinks and 27% was due to changes in consumer behaviour!

Reading this article (find it here) takes us back to our piece on bubble tea, where we found that drinking a 500ml drink of bubble tea at 100% sugar level was pretty much the same as drinking three cans of Coca Cola. With the average Malaysian apparently consuming a whopping 3kg of sugar from sugary drinks annually, fingers crossed that the introduction of our own sugar tax in July 2019 will bring Malaysia a sweet victory too (pun intended).

Boba Boom: The Rise of the Boba and the Sugar Strikes Back

In a brief moment of levity, Khor Reports has decided to (finally) hop on the boba bandwagon and find out what the hype’s about. After a bit of internet trawling, we now have a dashboard of selected boba brands across Malaysia and a bit of market information on the popular drink.

Being the wet blanket as we are though, we decided to also add in information about sugar consumption and how the boba faze might not help health-wise in the long run. (We’re sorry, we care too much to ignore this.)

Click here to read the full post!