Singapore’s Nutri Grade label spurs beverage reformulation

Nearly six months after becoming mandatory for drinks, Singapore’s Nutri-Grade front-of-pack label is encouraging some beverage brands to reduce sugar and saturated fat content.

Launched in December 2022, Nutri-Grade is a mandatory nutrition label for beverages sold in Singapore in prepacked form and from automated beverage dispensers. Nutri-Grade beverages are graded as A, B, C, or D, according to their sugar and saturated fat content.

“Nutri-Grade labels are effective in increasing purchases of beverages that were rated A or B—the healthier drinks,” said Dr Soye Shin, Health Economist from Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School in response to her recent study looking at the impact of these labels on consumer purchases.

“Compared to what was bought during the shopping experience without the Nutri-Grade labels, those bought with the Nutri-Grade labels had a reduced sugar content of 1.5 grams per serving.”

The study was not without its negatives though as additional findings revealed that there were no significant differences in the total calories, saturated fat or other nutrients present in the purchased goods.

According to the research team, this was likely because beverages account for a small part of the total shopping basket.

Nutri Grade label to extend to freshly prepared beverages

While the study highlights the limits of the labelling system that focuses primarily on pre-packaged beverages, the findings are a good starting point to expand NG to include freshly prepared beverages - a move the Singapore government intends to implement by the end of 2023.

The beverage industry has been prepared for the sugar restrictions on pre-packaged beverages for some time now with big name brands like Yeo’s reformulating its flagship products to avoid the high-sugar ‘C’ or ‘D’ labels.

In the last 12 months, Yeo’s has made available zero-sugar and low-sugar variants of its popular chrysanthemum tea products.

“The criteria for a beverage to be labelled a Healthier Choice under the government scheme is to have 5% or less of sugar – the original chrysanthemum tea already qualified for this, and so the less-sugar (2.5%) and zero-sugar (0%) options definitely also qualify too,” said Yeo’s Singapore CEO Angela Lu.

“Similarly for Nutri-Grade, Grade C is where drinks have above 5% sugar content and Grade D beverages have more than 10% sugar content.”

Yeo’s, POKKA and Yakult joins the low sugar movement

Just as Yeo’s have taken the lead on this, so has its fellow beverage makers followed with POKKA also introducing its range of reduced-sugar alternatives such as Kiyo Kyoho Grape Juice Less Sugar.

Yakult has reformulated Yakult Original to now include 6.5 grams of total sugar per 100 ml serving as well as 1.5 µg of vitamin D added.

Now qualified as a Nutri-Grade B product, Yakult Gold has approximately 2.5 times less sugar than Yakult Original.

The pandemic’s influence on consuming less sugar

Further impacting manufacturers and consumer food choices was the pandemic, placing general health under the spotlight, and the need to keep a closer eye on food and beverage intake.

“The pandemic has changed and influenced ways of life globally,” commented Irene Ee, POKKA senior product manager, marketing division.

“This has in turn altered consumers behaviours as well as companies’ business perspectives - protecting [consumers’] health and interests are new expectations, so adaptability is a crucial driving force [for us] to push forward for the years to come.”