Explainer: How will nutrition labels for freshly prepared drinks high in sugar and fat content work?

The Nutri-Grade system — which will be used to grade pre-packaged drinks from Dec 30 based on their sugar and saturated fats content — will be extended to freshly-made drinks, such as those brewed from coffeeshops, freshly squeezed juices and bubble tea.

“We will not require all establishments to use laboratory analysis to determine the sugar and saturated fat content of their beverages.” “Today, more than half of Singaporeans’ daily sugar intake comes from beverages, of which prepacked beverages, for example, can and packet drinks, contribute nearly two-thirds,” he said.

“Conversely, sales of beverages with less than 5 per cent sugar content have gone up from 37 per cent to 60 per cent over the same period,” said Mr Ong.Ms Samantha Chan, a marketing and digital communications lecturer from Nanyang Polytechnic 's School of Business Management, said that the Nutri-Grade scheme would help consumers of freshly-made drinks make better choices.

“For example, some consumers may not know that a bubble tea with the lowest sugar level could still contain a lot of sugar because of the other contents, such as syrup and condensed milk,” he said. Assoc Prof Zhang also said that a higher Nutri-Grade mark may not equate to a healthier choice, and may result in pushback from F&B outlets.

Ms Claudine Loong, a food science and nutrition lecturer from Nanyang Polytechnic’s School of Applied Science, pointed out that businesses selling fruit juices may struggle with the new scheme as they may be unable to cut down on sugar content. However, she acknowledged that this may raise awareness that fresh fruit juices and fruit-based drinks are not “as healthy as they look” because of their high level of sugar.

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