---
title: "This Generation of Young People: Quitting Sugar and Eating Sugar at the Same Time"
description: "Young people who constantly talk about \"sugar-free\" are starting to eat sugar again. The most eye-catching are \"goodnight gummies\" containing GABA, which claim to help you \"sleep soundly all night\" with one gummy before bed; the same ingredient, renamed as \"stress-relief gummies,\" is said to help \"shed fatigue and anxiety.\" For those who want to look beautiful, fear gaining weight, or even worry about gut issues, there are also gummies: \"glow gummies,\" touted as \"edible hyaluronic acid\"; \"probiotic gummies,\" claiming to prevent suboptimal intestinal health; and for those who love eating but fear fat, there are \"white kidney bean chewable gummies\" that can \"block oil and sugar\"..."
author: "开菠萝财经团队"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2021-10-07"
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# This Generation of Young People: Quitting Sugar and Eating Sugar at the Same Time

> Young people who constantly talk about "sugar-free" are starting to eat sugar again. The most eye-catching are "goodnight gummies" containing GABA, which claim to help you "sleep soundly all night" with one gummy before bed; the same ingredient, renamed as "stress-relief gummies," is said to help "shed fatigue and anxiety." For those who want to look beautiful, fear gaining weight, or even worry about gut issues, there are also gummies: "glow gummies," touted as "edible hyaluronic acid"; "probiotic gummies," claiming to prevent suboptimal intestinal health; and for those who love eating but fear fat, there are "white kidney bean chewable gummies" that can "block oil and sugar"...

(ID:kaiboluocaijing)
Young people who constantly talk about "sugar-free" are starting to eat sugar again.
The most eye-catching are "goodnight gummies" containing GABA, which claim to help you "sleep soundly all night" with one gummy before bed; the same ingredient, renamed as "stress-relief gummies," is said to help "shed fatigue and anxiety."
For those who want to look beautiful, fear gaining weight, or even worry about gut issues, there are also gummies: "glow gummies," touted as "edible hyaluronic acid"; "probiotic gummies," claiming to prevent suboptimal intestinal health; and for those who love eating but fear fat, there are "white kidney bean chewable gummies" that can "block oil and sugar"... To get young people to pay up, brands not only aggressively promote the core functional ingredients in their gummies but also emphasize "0 sucrose, low calories," because they are all made with sugar substitutes. Useful, tasty, and not fattening—this meets the "punk wellness" needs of young people. Bombarded by this wave of "sugar-coated bullets," young people quickly created many "internet-famous gummies." Functional gummies from brands like Wonderlab, Minayo, Joliyoyo, Nelo, Buffx, Wuxianchang, and Heiling have dominated Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and major e-commerce platforms for a long time.
When the word "functional" is added to gummies, prices also rise accordingly. However, with an average price of 2-8 yuan per gummy, the content of core ingredients is minimal, and whether they can truly help with sleep, stress relief, beauty, and weight management has been questioned by some experts. For example, experts point out that the core ingredient in carb-blocking tablets, α-amylase inhibitor, which is promoted as "absorbing oil and resisting sugar," can only prevent starch from being absorbed, but cannot guard against sucrose and fats, the "enemies of weight loss."
As for GABA in goodnight gummies, there is insufficient evidence to prove it can achieve "stress relief and sleep aid." Whether oral GABA foods can pass through the gastrointestinal tract and blood circulation, then cross the blood-brain barrier to have a calming effect, is even more scientifically unsupported. Similarly, oral hyaluronic acid has been labeled as "paying IQ tax."
In fact, relying on "gummies" for wellness is less about technological innovation and consumption upgrade, and more about new consumer brands packaging a story full of novelty and allure under the catalysis of capital.
**No "wellness" is beyond the reach of a gummy**
In the past two years, friends around seem to have entered the era of "sugar reduction." This is the personal feeling of Li Xin, a post-90s woman. Everyone must choose less sugar for milk tea, only drink sugar-free soda, and coffee is preferably American style.
Whenever she orders milk tea or drinks cola, she is always "attacked" by friends: "How can you still drink such sweet drinks?" Friends anxiously send her public account links, popularizing the dangers of sugar: "Sugar: A Scam Hidden for 50 Years," "Every Bite of Sugar Is Gambling with Your Health," "If You Eat Sugar Every Day, It's Time to Know These Five Truths"... Just reading these headlines, she already feels that the sugar she consumed in the past has turned into worms corroding her body. Almost without further persuasion, she voluntarily joined the sugar-quitting army.
However, at a recent sisters' gathering, Li Xin discovered that a friend who always says "sugar-free yyds" actually pulled out a bag of hyaluronic acid gummies from her bag, calling them "must-have wellness items." She was curious: "Don't gummies contain sugar?" The friend said, "Of course, these functional gummies use sugar substitutes. Isn't that basic?"
A brand's "goodnight gummies" and "glow gummies"
/ Tmall flagship store The friend began a new round of science popularization: Just like Yuanqi Forest's sugar-free sparkling water uses erythritol, these gummies use sorbitol and maltitol, which are functional sugar alcohols. They taste sweet but have low energy and high safety, replacing traditional sucrose and maltose. "You won't gain weight, and you can even beautify."
Of course, young people represented by Li Xin's friend are willing to buy gummies not because they have a sweet tooth, but because these gummies contain certain functional ingredients that are claimed to be safe and effective.
Suffering from insomnia and dreaminess, take a sleep gummy containing GABA; feeling sleepy at work, take a sparkling gummy with taurine; eye fatigue from staring at the computer all day, take an eye-care gummy with lutein ester. For poor gut and constipation, eat probiotic gummies; for a bouncy, glowing complexion, eat hyaluronic acid gummies; for those who want to eat but fear fat, there are carb-blocking tablets. Daily calcium, iron, and vitamin C supplements can also be solved with gummies.
Searching for "gummies" on e-commerce platforms, the homepage displays functional foods / Taobao screenshot "Post-95s" Xiao Yi is a loyal consumer of such functional gummies. "I started taking health supplements with nutritional elements about four or five years ago, such as grape seed extract tablets, cranberry capsules, and calcium, liver-protecting, and digestion-promoting ones." She told Kaiboluo Finance, but these supplements are mostly large chewable tablets or capsules that are not tasty and hard to swallow, requiring water. "I often forget to take them, and they expire with plenty left."
"But gummies are different—they are convenient, tasty, and like snacks, so easy to stick with," Xiao Yi admitted. If the key ingredients remain unchanged and the auxiliary ingredients are safe and harmless, functional candies will naturally be more popular.
CBNData's "Report on Health Consumption Trends of Young People" shows that in recent years, the popularity of "snack-like" forms such as jelly and gummies has rapidly increased, with the consumption growth rate of gummy forms far exceeding capsules and tablets. Post-90s and post-95s prefer gummy forms compared to other generations.
Clearly, this wave of "sugar-coated bullets" is aimed at young people.
On e-commerce platforms, **these functional gummies are mainly packaged in small portions of 10-30 pieces per box, priced between 40-100 yuan,** with a low consumption threshold but full of gimmicks.
Their **main functions of relieving anxiety, improving sleep, beautifying, regulating gut, and resisting sugar and oil** are exactly the "punk wellness" needs of today's young people.
Under the fierce online marketing offensive, young people who fell into the "sugar jar" quickly created many internet-famous brands.
For example, Buffx, founded only in April last year, became the top seller of sleep gummies on Tmall within three months of launch. Its flagship store data shows that the Sleep Blue Buff gummies sold 3.2 million bags in a year.
In May 2021, Wuxianchang, which focuses on carb blocking, achieved monthly sales of 50 million yuan in its first Douyin live broadcast, ranking first in Douyin's food category.
Other functional food brands such as Wonderlab, Minayo, Joliyoyo, and Nelo have monthly sales of over a thousand or even ten thousand for single gummy products on Tmall flagship stores.
According to data from China Commercial Industry Research Institute, the global functional food market is expected to exceed 600 billion yuan in 2022, and functional candy sales will exceed 8.6 billion US dollars.
**Turning health supplements into gummies:
New consumption or IQ tax?**
If traditional nutritional supplements can be explained by "taking them long-term to see effects," then various quick-acting functional gummies that claim "one gummy before bed, sleep soundly all night" or "two gummies after meals, Wuxianchang" may face backlash sooner.
"I ate two sleep gummies, and now I'm full of energy. The gummies aren't even tasty enough to make me willing to spend 39 yuan on 20 pieces. This IQ tax is paid cleanly without hesitation," a consumer complained on social media.
Compared with ordinary fruit gummies, functional gummies are not cheap, but their biggest selling point—the cost of functional core ingredients—is not high.
Take Wonderlab hyaluronic acid gummies as an example. Its Tmall flagship store shows 20 pieces for 49 yuan, a unit price of 2.45 yuan per piece, with each gummy containing 12mg of Huaxi Biotechnology's patented hyaluronic acid.
According to Huaxi Biotechnology's prospectus, the average selling price of food-grade hyaluronic acid in 2018 was 1258.36 yuan/kg, **so the cost of hyaluronic acid per gummy is only 0.015 yuan.**
In terms of efficacy, the most popular products on the market—hyaluronic acid gummies, sleep/stress-relief gummies, and carb-blocking tablets—are considered by many experts and scholars to be "overrated."
For example, carb-blocking tablets promoted by Wuxianchang, Nelo, Bio-E, and Heiling claim to "wrap and absorb oil, efficiently resist sugar" and "eat two tablets before meals, say goodbye to starch, oil, and sugar," which is hard to resist for those who want to eat but fear gaining weight.
The core ingredient of carb-blocking tablets is white kidney bean extract
/ Tmall flagship store From product promotions, the core ingredient of carb-blocking tablets is white kidney bean extract, i.e., α-amylase inhibitor, which is actually widely present in high-starch plant fruits such as barley, wheat, rice, and peanuts.
Gu Zhongyi, a director of the Beijing Dietitian Association and nutritionist, once published an article explaining that α-amylase inhibitor can prevent starch from being absorbed by inhibiting salivary amylase and pancreatic amylase, but it cannot prevent sucrose absorption, nor can it prevent glucose, fructose, and other monosaccharides from entering the blood.
These free sugars are exactly what need to be guarded against for health. In addition, α-amylase inhibition does not help with fats in foods like fried chicken.
Gu Zhongyi pointed out that such products may have some effect for people whose diet is mainly starch, who are truly obese, and who eat large amounts, but overall, the "weight loss" effect needs more evidence to confirm.
Furthermore, this ingredient may cause side effects such as bloating, abdominal pain, and diarrhea after entering the body, and those who already have diarrhea should be cautious.
Now let's look at sleep gummies used by brands like Buffx, Nelo, Wonderlab, Kooyo, and Heiling as alternatives to melatonin, as well as stress-relief gummies by brands like Joliyoyo that play the "emotional healing" card.
Multiple brands' sleep gummies have GABA as the core ingredient / Tmall flagship store Their core ingredient is GABA, i.e., γ-aminobutyric acid, a functional non-protein amino acid found in animal brains and plants. It can inhibit excessive excitement of the central nervous system, has a calming effect on the brain, and thus promotes relaxation and improves sleep.
In 2009, China's Ministry of Health stipulated that GABA can be added to foods such as beverages, candies, and cocoa products, but the intake must not exceed 500mg/day.
In brand promotions, GABA is safer, milder, and hormone-free compared to melatonin. A gummy typically contains 30-150mg of GABA. But does taking 1-2 GABA gummies a day really help with sleep and stress relief?
Researchers at Nottingham Trent University in the UK published a systematic review in August 2020, which reviewed previous studies on oral GABA's effects on anxiety and sleep and pointed out that current supporting data is insufficient.
A Peking University psychiatric PhD said in a popular science video that the blood-brain barrier is like a wall for GABA, and there is currently no evidence supporting that GABA can enter the blood-brain barrier in large amounts. Moreover, after oral GABA passes through the gastrointestinal tract and blood circulation, its content is already minimal.
He concluded that **sleep gummies containing GABA are not as effective as merchants claim. In contrast, engaging in mindfulness, meditation, and other activities before bed can quickly increase GABA levels in the brain.**
Similarly, the effectiveness of oral hyaluronic acid is also considered to lack sufficient reliable evidence.
Dingxiang Doctor once published an article pointing out that due to the complex absorption and metabolism mechanisms of the human body, ingested hyaluronic acid is digested and broken down into small molecules, waiting for the next step of reassembly.
The result of reassembly depends on the body's needs. In other words, eating hyaluronic acid does not mean it is fully absorbed; much of it is metabolized and excreted.
**Who is making money from young people's "gummy" purchases?**
These "all-purpose" wellness gummies are more like a beautiful dream woven by new consumer brands for young people.
"Recently, I've been seeing Buffx ads on Douyin so frequently that I couldn't help but search for it, and finally bought energy and VC gummies," a consumer said on social media. "This red buff gummy seems specially designed for 'burnout but passionate' young people. I didn't have much thought when buying it; just seeing the word 'energy' made me feel 'I need it.'"
This is almost exactly the "serial routine" used by these new functional food brands. **KOL seeding, big influencer live streaming, review bloggers and science platforms endorsing, celebrity endorsements—with this combined marketing approach, at least one link will hit young consumers.**
Many bloggers seed functional gummies on platforms / Xiaohongshu screenshot The taste, form, and packaging also fully cater to young people's preferences. Flavors include white peach, mango, and matcha; shapes include stars, hearts, bears, and kittens; packaging is either cute and adorable or cool and poster-like, and even minimalist styles use highly saturated red, green, blue, and purple to represent "energy."
To guide orders, product promotions not only highlight key ingredients and emphasize the naturalness, safety, and premium quality of raw materials, but also directly state the product's efficacy in plain language, such as "edible hyaluronic acid," "chew for a rosy complexion," "oil-absorbing black technology," and "become beautiful and light without knowing it while sleeping."
However, Zhu Danpeng, an analyst at China Food Industry, told Kaiboluo Finance that **functional foods currently on the market, including gummies, that promote functionality without the "health" designation (the so-called "blue hat") are actually suspected of violating the Advertising Law. According to him, such operations may be rectified in the second half of this year.**
Although brands are playing the "food technology" card, in reality, the industry chain technology and raw material thresholds are not high. The technical barriers mainly rely on core ingredient suppliers in the supply chain.
Buffx founder Kang Le revealed in an interview that Buffx has two teams researching "tasty" and "useful" separately.
The entire R&D core consists of an in-house scientist advisory team, external special medical companies, and the scientific research force of the supply chain, responsible for "basic formula supplementation," "clinical practice and final formula realization," and "final inspection," respectively. The "tasty" part is handled by an external consultant and a small internal team.
Take the most popular sleep gummies as an example: **The GABA raw materials in Wonderlab, Buffx, and Nelo products are all provided by the biotech company Huaxi Biotechnology.**
This world's largest supplier of hyaluronic acid raw materials also provides food-grade hyaluronic acid raw materials to brands like Wonderlab.
The GABA ingredients in multiple brand products come from Huaxi Biotechnology / Tmall flagship store By providing patented raw materials to major brands, Huaxi Biotechnology has made a fortune. Its 2021 semi-annual report shows that **in the first half of this year, revenue from bioactive raw materials such as hyaluronic acid derivatives and GABA increased significantly by about 106.10% year-on-year, with a gross margin as high as 73.03%.**
Seeing the broad prospects and high profits of hyaluronic acid and GABA in the food field, Huaxi Biotechnology also launched its own functional food brand "Heiling" in June this year, developing multi-functional gummies such as "hyaluronic acid + GABA," "hyaluronic acid + white kidney bean extract," and "hyaluronic acid + lutein ester."
It is not hard to see that in this so-called functional food track, creating a new brand is actually quite simple: understand user needs, establish market awareness, and tell brand stories—this is what new consumer brands are good at. **As for R&D and production, they are left to the supply chain and OEM factories.**
Similarly, brands can also tell this story to capital.
"The younger health awareness and the anxiety created internally and externally have driven the rapid development of the functional food market," said Gao Jianfeng, founding partner of Shanghai Bogao Consulting. He believes that the functional food track has fast growth, high profits, large scale, low education costs, and is easy to start, making it a good business in the eyes of capital.
In January this year, Buffx secured an A-round financing led by Heiyi Capital; Nelo received tens of millions of RMB in A-round investment from IDG Capital and BAI Capital; Minayo, after completing Pre-A round in March, received A-round investment from Lenovo Star and HAUMAY in August; Wonderlab received financing from Rizhao Capital and Temasek in June and August respectively; Joliyoyo also received tens of millions of yuan in angel round financing in June.
"Capital can quickly catalyze a company with scale, but the characteristics of the track mean that brands rise quickly and fade quickly." In Gao Jianfeng's view, the birth of many brands will stimulate the industry to develop into larger segmented markets, but for these brands to maintain lasting popularity and even distance themselves from peers, they need continuous investment and rely on the innovation of phenomenal products.
However, low industry thresholds, lack of standards, brand "involution," and capital promotion are causing brands to run naked on the road of wanton marketing and even false advertising.
In the short term, this may create many "internet-famous" products that meet consumer needs. But in the long run, to truly establish a segmented market and allow the industry to develop healthily, the introduction of relevant standards and self-discipline of large enterprises are essential.
 *Cover image from Pexels. At the request of interviewees, Li Xin and Xiao Yi in the article are pseudonyms.
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