Many soft drink and non-alcoholic drink manufacturers in Singapore have made the necessary changes to their ingredients especially by cutting sugar and saturated fats in their products, and introduced nutrition labels on their pre-packaged drinks well ahead of the 30 December 2022 deadline.
Singapore’s Health Ministry has earlier announced the deadline to meet the Nutri-Grade label/mark on pre-packaged drinks with higher sugar and saturated fat content. The mark comprises 4 grades classifying drinks from A (dark green) to D (red) from the healthiest to unhealthiest grading respectively. The products include juices and juice drinks, soft drinks, milk and yogurt drinks, and instant powdered beverages. Beverages that are rated C and D, the unhealthiest grades, must carry the Nutri-Grade label and those with a D label cannot be advertised on any media platform.
The move to introduce new labelling regulations is part of a national effort to help people keep unhealthy diets in check and prevent diseases such as diabetes. There is a growing consumer trend in favour of beverages with low or zero sugar content and the nutri-grade label will assist them in their shopping purchases.
In an earlier storecheck study in December, 62% of juices were found to contain the Nutri-Grade label of which only 0.8% was graded B, 32.26% graded C and the rest (29%) graded D.
According to the Health Ministry, Grade B refers to drinks that contain between 1-5g of sugar per 100ml or 0.7-1.2g of saturated fat per 100ml, whereas Grade C refers to drinks that contain between 5-10g per 100ml or 1.2-2.8g of saturated fat per 100ml.
The Health Promotion Board will conduct checks to ensure the new labelling regulations are being followed, and that companies are responsible for applying the Nutri-Grade marks to their products.
Drink manufacturers have made the necessary changes to adopt the new labelling regulations apart from reformulating their drinks to make it into the healthier categories. Yeo’s, a major supplier of non-carbonated Asian drinks like chrysanthemum tea and grass jelly, claimed that all its Yeo’s products will be in the A to B grade by 2023, as it has invested heavily on R&D and pilot consumer trials by adjusting sugar content or adding new ingredients, like honey or wolfberry for example, to ensure the taste is not compromised.
Another major cordial drink producer, Asia Farm announced that 58% of its products were now graded C or D in 2022, a vast improvement from 90% recorded in 2018. Asia Farm supplies its juice concentrates to HoReCa segment, and it faces challenges in reducing sugar for some of its concentrates for example, calamansi concentrate which is graded D.
Another drink manufacturer, Pokka Singapore disclosed that more than half of its products are positively graded A and B.
The Health Ministry disclosed that Singaporeans consume on average 60g of sugar daily with more than half of this coming from sugar-sweetened beverages, especially pre-packaged drinks. Non-compliance with the new regulation on Nutri-Grade labelling will constitute an offence punishable with a fine not exceeding S$1,000 (US$758) which will double for repeated offence.
