Mr Viral
China Focus
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In this edition, we explore Kewpie’s plans to introduce elderly-friendly foods in China, Meijian’s efforts to position plum liqueur as the country’s next big alcohol export, how digital health interventions could help reduce salt intake, and more.Kewpie looks to apply elderly-friendly food development expertise from Japan to China marketJapan’s Kewpie hopes to apply the expertise it has developed in producing elderly friendly foods in Japan to the China market in light of the latter’s rapidly increasing elderly population size.
Kewpie has been working on ways to help the elderly eat and enjoy foods via oral consumption and not via parenteral methods such as tube feeding, as studies have shown that physical chewing and oral ingestion has benefits to improve physiology.
Stone me: China’s Meijian taps arts, crafts and localisation to popularise plum liqueurChina’s Meijian is looking to position plum wine as the nation’s next big alcohol export.
Plum wine and liqueur has some 5,000 years of history in China, but is overshadowed by western grape wines, said Meijian General Manager Anping Xu, who wants to reverse this.
Digital health interventions could educate consumers on salt intake, potentially leading to lower blood pressure, say researchersResearchers in China find potential in mobile health app for salt intake education, which can help manage systolic blood pressure long term.
They observed that the effect of the education programme on adults’ salt intake faded one year after the RCT. However, the systolic blood pressure lowering effect and the improvement of salt-related Knowledge, Attitude, Practice (KAP) score remained, said researchers.
Dairy dilemma: Fonterra’s slump in China leads to profit declineNew Zealand dairy co-operative Fonterra has seen strong growth in South East Asia but also a significant decline in China, resulting in a decrease in profits for the first quarter of its FY2025.
China has shown a 12.2% decrease year-on-year in terms of dairy and milk imports, but import demand is improving as local supply growth moderates, said Fonterra CEO Miles Hurrell.
Increasing preference for snacks over meals in Asia spells diversification opportunitiesBusier routines re-emerging post-pandemic have sparked demand for “more convenient nutrition solutions” such as snacking, be it for a satiating meal replacement or a treat during social gatherings.
“Healthy snacks have become a source of nutrition complementation, meal replacement, and satiation. Salty snacks and biscuits have been key beneficiaries given their lower price points and filling ingredients, such as fibre, protein and vegetables,” said Carl Quash III, head of snacks at Euromonitor International.
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