In recent years, “light and healthy” has become the standard for new tea brands to promote wellness. The pursuit of nutritional health in New Chinese-style tea beverages has emerged as an industry trend. However, what consumers may not realize is that behind the health-oriented upgrades of every cup of "bubble tea" lies a new breakthrough in industry research and development, with innovation supporting consumers' new demands for healthiness. In this wave of healthification, Bingbolang, as the pioneer of non-hydrogenated base milk, tears open the "sweet packaging" of traditional bubble tea with disruptive technology and redefines the health baseline of a cup of bubble tea through technological innovation.

Bingbolang is the result of 37 years of technological innovation by Zhejiang Shengmana Dairy Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shengmana Dairy"). It not only ends the era of hydrogenated vegetable oils but also pushes the industry into a new epoch of "0 trans fats and low saturated fatty acids" with stringent standards comparable to infant formula milk powder. Behind Bingbolang lies a hardcore narrative of China's food industry breaking through with new-quality productive forces.It will also showcase the innovation of the Chinese food industry on an international stage like Bakery China.

What exactly is Bingbolang?

In recent years, the New Chinese-style tea beverage market has flourished, accompanied by product iterations and upgrades. High quality and nutritional health development are the fundamental paths for the evolution of New Chinese-style tea beverages and even China's food industry. The base milk, which determines the quality of bubble tea, has undergone several iterations, reflecting a continuous balance between health and cost. The first generation of hydrogenated vegetable oils dominated the market due to their price advantage and stability, but their trans fats and high saturated fatty acid content of 40%-50% have long been associated with cardiovascular disease risks. The second generation, including "coffee cream" and "thick milk," improved taste with dairy fat adjustments but failed to address health concerns. The third generation, represented by Bingbolang's non-hydrogenated base milk, revolutionizes the game with a fractionation process. The amount of "saturated fats" is a crucial criterion for assessing the healthiness of bubble tea. Previous generations used hydrogenated vegetable oils, resulting in a throat-coating, greasy feeling and poor absorption by the human body. Long-term excessive intake of saturated fatty acids poses health risks.

The demand for nutrition and health has sparked a revolution in bubble tea ingredients, with Bingbolang emerging as a game-changer in the industry.Bingbolang's non-hydrogenated base milk uses a fractionation process to separate natural plant fats into higher-melting-point stearin and lower-melting-point liquid oil. This is achieved through cooling, crystallization, and filtration, based on the melting points and properties of different triglycerides. This addresses the health issues posed by hydrogenated vegetable oils that have plagued the market since the import of creamer products more than three decades ago. This groundbreaking product processes unsaturated fatty acids through a special process to achieve a full, smooth texture in bubble tea while genuinely achieving low saturated fatty acids and a low melting point. In other words, under the theme of healthy tea beverages, it offers consumers the desired "healthy and nutritious" products with the dual benefits of "low melting point and no weight gain" and "low saturated fatty acids."

New-quality productive forces drive industrial upgrades

Behind the "0 trans fats" label lie advancements in technological research and development, as well as the company's commitment to long-termism and continuous scientific and technological innovation. From 2017 to 2018, addressing the bland taste of pure milk tea and the complicated procedures involved in adding cream and evaporated milk, Shengmana Dairy developed animal milk fat blends such as triple-thickness milk, extra-concentrated milk, and rich milk for bubble tea upgrades. Subsequently, to ensure that the tea flavor and aroma of original tea leaves are not suppressed by dairy products, Shengmana Dairy kept abreast of the times and introduced new products. When used with milk, these blends not only increase the richness but also allow the tea aroma to shine through. With consumers' health awareness continuously upgrading, ingredient companies must pay sufficient attention, making it imperative for the industry to solve the issue of trans fats in bubble tea base milk.

To this end, Shengmana Dairy's R&D team extracted low-melting-point liquid oil from natural plant oils, using cooling crystallization technology to separate high-melting-point stearin and ensure that the oil's melting point is below human body temperature (37°C). This process breakthrough not only avoids trans fats produced during hydrogenation but also reduces saturated fatty acid content to below 15%, far lower than traditional non-dairy creamers. Behind this technology are four invention patents and continuous iterations from "thick milk" in 2017 to "Bingbolang 2.0" in 2023. The breakthroughs in Bingbolang's core technology represent China's new-quality productive forces in the dairy industry, driving raw material upgrades and industrial upgrades in the freshly prepared tea beverage market with new technology and providing more health guarantees for consumers. It can be said that the emergence of Chinese national brands represented by Bingbolang has made China a world leader in technology for freshly prepared beverage ingredients, transitioning from "following" to "leading." Chinese brands are influencing the world and contributing to the nutritional health upgrades of the global food industry.

Shengmana Dairy's practice proves that China's food industry is at the forefront of the times. Through innovative research and development, as well as deeply ingrained concepts of health and a broad food perspective, China's food enterprises are paying more attention to nutrition and health. Chinese enterprises are contributing "Chinese wisdom" to the improvement of global food quality.

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Bakery China, organized by China Association of Bakery and Confectionery Industry (CABCI) and Bakery China Exhibitions Co., Ltd. was launched since 1997. Bakery China is the Asia Pacific‘s leading event serving the entire value chain for the bakery and confectionery market. The event presents all range of ingredient, equipment, packaging and services, and enables global leading professionals and buyer delegates to meet and share the latest innovations and thinking on manufacturing & distribution, R&D, applications and related services for bakery industry.

The 27th Bakery China would be held on May 19-22, 2025 at National Exhibition and Convention Center (NECC), Shanghai, covering 330,000 sqm show space. Over 2,200 exhibitors and 400,000 visits are expected.

Source：FoodTalks