---
title: "\"Zero Sugar\" Becomes a Scam, While \"Light Salt\" Becomes a Trend?"
description: "In the light salt sector, there is no benchmark company like Genki Forest yet. The George Institute for Global Health's deputy director Zhang Puhong joked that reducing salt intake might help Chinese football. With health trends, young consumers are reducing salt, but the sector faces challenges such as high prices, misleading marketing, and consumer preference for heavy flavors."
author: "响马"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-05-12"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zero-sugar-becomes-a-scam-while-light-salt-becomes-a-trend-715342ae/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zero-sugar-becomes-a-scam-while-light-salt-becomes-a-trend-715342ae.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/5aaFKYP3NJwCRVcQYyCyfw"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E9%9B%B6%E7%B3%96-%E6%B2%A6%E4%B8%BA%E9%AA%97%E5%B1%80-%E8%BD%BB%E7%9B%90-%E5%8D%B4%E6%88%90%E9%A3%8E%E5%8F%A3-715342ae.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zero-sugar-becomes-a-scam-while-light-salt-becomes-a-trend-715342ae/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# "Zero Sugar" Becomes a Scam, While "Light Salt" Becomes a Trend?

> In the light salt sector, there is no benchmark company like Genki Forest yet. The George Institute for Global Health's deputy director Zhang Puhong joked that reducing salt intake might help Chinese football. With health trends, young consumers are reducing salt, but the sector faces challenges such as high prices, misleading marketing, and consumer preference for heavy flavors.

**"In the light salt sector, there is no benchmark company like Genki Forest yet."**
You might not expect that the level of Chinese football is somewhat related to salt intake.
Zhang Puhong, deputy director of the George Institute for Global Health (China), gave a speech on "salt intake." He said bluntly: "In Africa and South America, salt intake is lower than ours, yet it is these countries that seem to be stronger than us in both football and running."
Zhang joked: "Perhaps, for Chinese football to break out of Asia and go global, we need to reduce salt first; maybe it will work."
In fact, not just football players, almost all Chinese people exceed the recommended salt intake, ranking at the "leading level" globally.
However, in recent years, influenced by the healthy eating trend, light salt has gradually gained popularity among young people.
According to Mintel's 2019 research data, 94% of Chinese urban consumers try to reduce salt intake. Recently, Tmall Supermarket's "daily necessities" life trend showed that families of the post-95s consume 3 grams less salt per day on average than post-85s, with 30% of post-95s using light soy sauce instead of table salt.
It seems that the habit of light salt, reduced salt, and less salt has formed a trend, which naturally attracts businesses and giants to enter. Moreover, compared to the recently hyped "low sugar" and "sugar-free" gimmicks, light salt is much more practical.
Even so, can light salt really become the next trend in the food industry?
**-01- Trend**
The Z generation, represented by post-95s, reduces salt primarily for health needs.
Excessive salt intake can lead to cardiovascular diseases and even death. This concept has a profound impact, but before this, Chinese people were among the countries with the highest salt intake in the world due to dietary habits.
Earlier, the World Health Organization recommended that daily salt intake per person should not exceed 5 grams, but the average salt intake in China is as high as 10.5 grams per day, more than twice the recommended value.
The key is that **eating more salt increases the risk of disease.**
According to Southern Weekly, studies show that increasing sodium intake by 1.15 grams (equivalent to 2.875 grams of salt) per day can increase the incidence of stroke by 6%. Currently, there are 11 million stroke patients in China. "If salt intake is not controlled, by 2030, the number of stroke patients will reach 31 million."
Long-term high salt intake can cause high osmotic pressure between gastric mucosal cells and the outside, leading to direct damage to the gastric mucosa, prone to pathological changes, and increasing the risk of cancer in gastric mucosal cells.
Conversely, reducing salt intake can lower blood pressure levels. A 50% reduction in salt intake could prevent 2.5 million deaths globally each year from stroke, heart disease, and chronic kidney disease.
For young people keen on health, such health risks prompt them to change their lifestyle and consumption habits, starting to adopt light salt, reduced salt, and less salt.
Secondly, **the Z generation reduces salt to ensure their appearance stays online.**
This is not a joke; both specialized research and personal life show that excessive salt intake can cause skin deterioration, body edema, and make one look worse.
From this perspective, **reducing salt intake has gradually become a collective need for the appearance-conscious Z generation.** Some media even wrote articles saying, "Eating too much salt makes you ugly; beauty lovers learn 5 'salt reduction methods'" directly linking salt reduction to maintaining appearance.
Furthermore, on platforms like Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu, celebrities, influencers, and ordinary people are vigorously promoting healthy eating lifestyles. This not only provides endless "examples" but also intentionally or unintentionally creates and deepens modern people's anxiety about healthy eating.
Driven by this anxiety, young people often examine their bodies and lives repeatedly, making changes including light salt.
On the other hand, the state is also promoting salt reduction.
Previously, the State Council issued the "National Nutrition Plan (2017-2030)" action requirements, proposing to achieve a 20% reduction in the national average daily salt intake per person by 2030.
In 2018, China first proposed a salt reduction strategy for the food industry. In April of that year, the Chinese Nutrition Society and the Institute of Nutrition and Health of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention jointly launched the "Guidelines for Salt Reduction in the Chinese Food Industry," recommending that food enterprises, as practitioners of salt reduction, achieve salt reduction targets in stages, striving to reduce the average sodium content of various processed foods by another 20% by 2030.
**It is not difficult to see that personal needs, platform reinforcement, and national promotion work together to make light salt a consumption trend.**
In this process, keen businesses and food industry giants have already entered early, chasing business opportunities on this not-yet-booming track.
**-02- Track**
A new track in its infancy, businesses and food industry giants "run into the field" early, related to major changes in consumption logic.
Simply put, with the development of productivity and social media, the era of consumer sovereignty has arrived. This requires businesses to connect with users more efficiently, provide richer, more detailed, and better-experienced services around users, truly centering on user needs.
Because of this, the Z generation's demand for light salt has attracted businesses to chase.
At the same time, consumers are indeed willing to pay for health and have taken action. According to CBNData's "2020 Tmall Food Trends Report," **50% of consumers purchased health-related products in 2019, and 83% of consumers proactively adjusted their diets to prevent health diseases.**
In fact, both Chinese and foreign giants have joined the salt reduction ranks.
As early as 2010, Kraft Foods announced it would reduce sodium content by an average of 10% in the North American market within two years. In 2017, Kraft Heinz's most iconic product, Heinz ketchup, had 40% less salt than 30 years ago.
Janek Berges, former R&D manager at Kraft Heinz, said: "Our dream is to have our ketchup, beans, and soups adopt the concept of 'no added salt.'"
Besides Kraft Foods, Mondelez had already achieved a 5% reduction in sodium content in its investment brands by 2017 and will continue to reduce salt.
In 2016, Nestlé also announced a 10% reduction in sodium content for products that did not meet Nestlé Nutrition Institute standards.
In the same year, Mars announced a 20% average reduction in sodium content in packaged foods by 2021, while PepsiCo launched a 50% reduced-salt potato chip series, using other low-sodium seasonings to create various flavors, including original, cheddar cheese and sour cream, and barbecue, to compensate for the blandness caused by reduced saltiness.
Domestically, the most prominent are the soy sauce giants.
**Soy sauce brands such as Haitian, Lee Kum Kee, Liuyuexian, and Jiajia have all launched products labeled as reduced salt, light salt, low salt, or thin salt.** When promoting these products, these companies specifically explain the amount of salt reduction and emphasize maintaining product freshness.
On the streets of Shaoxing, Zhejiang, New Retail Business Review found that on Lee Kum Kee's thin salt soy sauce billboard, the large characters highlighted "25% less salt, less salt without sacrificing freshness," with a small line at the bottom left noting "Salt content at least 25% lower than Lee Kum Kee's selected light soy sauce; data from Lee Kum Kee's internal testing results."
Beyond soy sauce giants, more food businesses are starting to reduce salt. For example, a new kimchi brand uses light salt, relatively refreshing kimchi to meet young people's needs, packaged as snacks, sold through online and offline channels.
And the spicy strips favored by young people have long been regarded as a "big salt field." Zhang Puhong pointed out: "Eating one pack of spicy strips exceeds the daily salt intake."
In response, in 2019, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a notice advocating that "spicy strips" foods reduce salt, oil, and sugar to improve health. Media commented: "Are spicy strips also starting to 'maintain health'?"
At first glance, the light salt track seems lively, but in fact, salty taste habits are deeply rooted, and the light salt lifestyle and its consumer market need long-term cultivation.
As Janek Berges said, only when consumers gradually adapt to low-salt tastes can salt reduction develop further. "To help consumers form new taste habits, all our suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers need to work together and learn from each other."
However, the reality is much more complex.
**-03- Dilemma**
Being on the same track naturally makes them competitors; cooperation is too idealistic. Starting from their own interests, intensifying "harvesting" is the reality.
**Many soy sauce companies have launched reduced-salt soy sauce, highlighting health labels, but prices are often more than three times higher than ordinary soy sauce. The key is that some companies try to fool consumers.**
The media once conducted a survey: a "thin salt soy sauce" produced by Chubang had a sodium content of 997 mg per 15 ml, "even exceeding many ordinary soy sauces."
Some businesses also precisely target the children's food market, with products basically unchanged, but using the concept of salt reduction to drive marketing.
The media saw a "Shinho zero-added reduced-salt natural organic baby soy sauce" on an e-commerce platform. Customer service told reporters that the soy sauce has relatively low salt content and is suitable for babies aged 1-3.
However, after checking the ingredient list, reporters found that the sodium content reached 500 mg per 10 ml, not only similar to ordinary soy sauce but also not qualifying as "low salt"—according to national standards for food nutrition labels, sodium content less than or equal to 120 mg per 100g or 100ml is considered "low salt."
Obviously, these companies are using light salt as a gimmick to hunt health-conscious consumers and make them pay "IQ tax."
**To some extent, these "questionable operations" on the enterprise side will undermine consumer trust in the light salt track and negatively impact companies that truly put user needs first.**
On the consumer side, consensus is also difficult to achieve.
As everyone knows, the Z generation has a sustained enthusiasm for hot pot, crayfish, braised products, and snacks. In other words, young people's diets are not balanced but increasingly heavy-flavored.
Taking snacks as an example, data from Dingmang Research Institute shows that among 77 common leisure snacks, high-sodium snacks account for up to 95%. Among them, preserved plums have the highest sodium content, with a single preserved plum containing 5905 mg of sodium.
Zhu Danpeng, a well-known analyst in the Chinese food industry, believes that **the entire Chinese consumer group is in a very contradictory state. On one hand, they have health awareness and knowledge, but in reality, for the entire catering industry, the new generation is becoming more heavy-flavored after rising.**
**Just like "staying up the latest night and applying the most expensive mask," the Z generation tries to reduce salt but cannot resist the temptation of heavy-flavored food. This is the structural dilemma of the light salt track.**
Moreover, salt is a seasoning scattered in various foods. Most salty foods cannot do without salt. A true "salt substitute" has not yet appeared, and the health benefits of salt reduction cannot be immediate; they only work subtly.
This means that the target group for salt reduction is quite broad, and the cycle for effectiveness is long, leaving businesses with no place to exert their strength.
Furthermore, on the light salt track, there is no benchmark company like Genki Forest that leads consumption trends, greatly weakening category driving force, and the demand for light salt cannot be widely activated.
Of course, regardless, the health benefits of salt reduction remain a rigid need, which is the underlying logic of the light salt track.
Public data shows that Japanese food and beverage giant Kikkoman continuously improves its formulas, launching more than 20 low-salt and reduced-salt products. By 2020, sales of reduced-salt soy sauce increased by 50% compared to five years earlier.
What Chinese companies need is exactly this determination and endurance. **Entering early, respecting "consumer sovereignty," and persisting long-term may be the "optimal solution" to break the dilemma and create a trend.**
Source: New Retail Business Review (ID: xinlingshou1001)
Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671