At a Glance (China Coffee Network): Recently, the “Coffee Health Science Campaign” was launched in Beijing, with Xinhua Net, the Nutrition Literacy Branch of the China Health Education and Promotion Association, and the Peking University Health Science Center–Luckin Coffee Health Innovation Base jointly participating, aiming to break information chaos with rigorous scientific consensus and guide the ready-to-drink beverage industry’s high-quality transformation toward “natural health and light burden.”
Recently, the “Coffee Health Science Campaign” was launched in Beijing, with Xinhua Net, the Nutrition Literacy Branch of the China Health Education and Promotion Association, and the Peking University Health Science Center–Luckin Coffee Health Innovation Base jointly participating, aiming to break information chaos with rigorous scientific consensus and guide the ready-to-drink beverage industry’s high-quality transformation toward “natural health and light burden.” At the event, the “2026 China Ready-to-Drink Beverage Health Trend Analysis Report” was released, systematically distilling four major trends and three implementation paths for the “health-oriented” transformation of ready-to-drink beverages, pushing the industry from a high-sugar, high-calorie “dessert-ification” trend toward a “light-burden” healthy path.
The campaign sets sail: multiple parties jointly advocate scientific coffee drinking.
Among the diverse ready-to-drink beverages, coffee has long been woven into the daily lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese, becoming one of the fastest-growing and most popular national-level ready-to-drink categories. Yet, alongside consumption fever, endless questions and health anxieties have emerged.
To respond to the public’s health concerns and explore a replicable, promotable path for the industry’s healthy transformation, representatives from multiple parties jointly declared the full launch of the “Coffee Health Science Campaign” at the event, aiming to convey a more composed, healthier scientific coffee-drinking guide and healthy-living attitude to the public. Alongside the science activities, the Peking University Health Science Center–Luckin Coffee Health Innovation Base also released the “Coffee + Healthy Living Scientific Pairing Handbook,” giving scientific truths and dietary-pairing advice on multiple health topics the public widely cares about, translating abstruse academic metrics into language consumers can understand and use, guiding the whole society to build a scientific, relaxed, burden-free healthy drinking style.
An authoritative report: health becomes core product power.
In fact, this thinking about health has long gone beyond coffee, extending to the entire ready-to-drink beverage industry. The “2026 China Ready-to-Drink Beverage Health Trend Analysis Report” released at the event is precisely to systematically respond to this industry anxiety and provide solutions.
The report notes that over 63% of respondents consider ready-to-drink beverages “too sweet,” while when a brand launches “low-sugar, zero-fat, low-calorie” flavored drinks, over 62% of users express strong purchase intent—showing that what consumers truly resist is not “flavor” itself, but the hidden health cost behind it.
Thus, the report distills four major trends for the “health-oriented” transformation: in ingredients, return to “clean label” native formulas via “addition and subtraction”; in scenarios, become a “health companion” precisely fitting different lifestyles; in audiences, meet young people’s stratified, refined needs with “default health”; in value, turn health into a differentiated lever convertible to commercial returns.
Ma Guansheng, representative of the Nutrition Literacy Branch of the China Health Education and Promotion Association, emphasized in his keynote interpretation that the future competitiveness of the coffee industry will deeply point to product power that is “light-burden yet with good flavor.” He pointed out that health has never been a marketing label but a product bottom line; raising nutrition literacy is a systemic project, and only when associations, academic institutions, industry enterprises, and media each do their part and pull in the same direction can the public truly benefit.
Multi-party dialogue: building consensus on scientific coffee drinking.
The shift revealed by the report—”from tasty to drinking well”—also became the focus of the roundtable. Guests from academia, media, and the industry front line held in-depth discussions around the industry changes and consumer psychology behind it. All parties reached consensus: the health-orientation of coffee and even the entire ready-to-drink beverage industry is by no means a single-point formula adjustment, but requires academia to do research, bases to do translation, industry to do implementation, and media to do communication—each playing its role and coordinating—to truly bring “scientific coffee drinking” into the public’s daily life.
Zhao Yanyan, Luckin Coffee’s general manager of public communications and head of sustainability, said: “Health is not only deeply rooted in Luckin’s brand DNA, but also carries our response to a better life. Based on the ‘Healthy China 2030’ blueprint, Luckin will continue to lead the new trend of healthy consumption, drive the balanced upgrade of nutrition and deliciousness through product innovation, and make every cup of coffee a daily practice of healthy living. From ‘tasty’ to ‘drinking well,’ we do not stop at satisfying the palate, but are committed to raising the whole nation’s health consensus, and with corporate strength boost social well-being—truly becoming a firm practitioner and value co-creator of Healthy China.”
Research builds the foundation: letting health-orientation take root.
In 2024, Luckin joined with Peking University Health Science Center’s School of Basic Medical Sciences to establish the “Peking University Health Science Center–Luckin Coffee Health Innovation Base.” In 2025, the base further completed a “Research Practice Center” at Luckin’s Baoshan fresh-cherry processing plant, extending research truly from the lab to the green-bean origin and production front line. The base insists on systematically sorting global latest evidence once a year and continuously releasing coffee-and-health research reports, providing a year-by-year iterated scientific foundation for the industry’s “health-oriented” upgrade, continuously dispelling public misconceptions and building a long-term trust bond between brand and consumers.
From the release of a scientific pairing handbook, to the interpretation of an industry trend report, to the same-stage dialogue of industry, academia, media, and production, the launch of this “Coffee Health Science Campaign” has gathered the multi-party consensus of academia, industry, media, and production—the future of coffee and even the entire ready-to-drink beverage industry lies not in one-sidedly catering to taste via “dessert-ification,” but in returning to health’s essence and walking the scientific path of “flavor and health in equal measure.”
Reprint Notice & Disclaimer: This article is reprinted from public sources. Source: China Coffee Network. All rights belong to the original publishers.
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