Analysis of tea beverage packaging market at home and abroad

China's tea beverage started in the early 1980s with tea carbonated beverages, and in the mid-80s it was impacted by Coca-Cola, Sprite and other foreign beverages and was almost squeezed out of the market. Since 1994, with the increasing popularity of tea beverages in the international market, especially in the Japanese market, the research and development of tea beverages in our country has risen again. Domestic research institutes and beverage manufacturers have successively developed and produced many varieties of tea beverages.

1, the current tea beverage variety of flavored tea beverages

From the taste can be roughly divided into two categories: one for the deployment of tea drinks (tea as the main body, add fruit juice, sugar, milk, flavor and fragrance, acid, Chinese medicine and other ingredients in one or more, from the reconciled Drink). The second is a pure tea beverage (without seasoning ingredients).

According to the classification method of the pre-review draft for national standards of tea beverages, there are also 6 types of tea beverages, fruit-flavored tea beverages, juice-based tea beverages, carbonated tea beverages, milk-flavored tea beverages, and other tea beverages.

Tea beverages are commonly used as pure tea beverages. Tea leaves and their extracts are used as raw materials. With little or no added sugar, tea beverages of the original tea flavor are maintained. Suntory’s sugar-free (or sugar-reduced) oolong tea, unified, Kangshifu’s sugar-free (or low-sugar) green tea, oolong tea, sunburst tea, heavenly and earthy jasmine teas are among its products.

Fruity tea drinks are beverages made with tea as the main ingredient and added with sugar, flavors, spices, acids, etc. Currently, lemon-flavored fruit tea beverages are the most common, such as Kangshifu's lemon black tea, unified ice green tea, ice tea, etc. . In regions such as Europe and the United States, sales of peach-flavored tea beverages are the best. Domestically, tea beverages such as apples and green tea are also available on the market.

Juice tea drinks are beverages made with tea as the main body, adding juice, sugar, flavors, spices, acids, etc., and are still rare in the market. The early tea family of Huierkang series includes plum green tea and plums added with plum juice. Black tea should belong to this category.

The carbonated tea beverage is a tea beverage that dissolves and mixes instant tea powder (concentrated tea juice), sugar, flavor and fragrance, and acid and other auxiliary materials, and then is filled with carbonic acid gas. Its processing technology draws on the processing methods of traditional carbonated beverages. The unique flavor characteristics of tea beverages, Rising Sun Ice Tea is a typical example of this type of tea beverage.

Milk tea beverages are tea beverages that contain tea, milk, sugar, flavors and spices. They combine the aroma of milk and the bitter and astringent taste unique to tea, such as unification of wheat fragrant milk tea, Vita milk tea, and Chinese milk tea.

Other tea beverages include tea beverages with various Chinese herbal ingredients, and tea beverages with cereal flavors, such as chrysanthemum tea, honeysuckle tea, Babao tea, barley black tea, and ginseng oolong tea.

2. Current packaging of tea beverages

At present, several types of packaging commonly used in the beverage industry are glass bottles, tinplate cans, aluminum cans, aseptic aluminum paper composite bags, PET bottles, plastic cans, and so on. Now its application in tea beverages and prospects Make a simple explanation.

2.1 Glass bottles

Glass bottles are used earlier in the beverage industry and are used in the packaging of sparkling beverages such as soft drinks and beer. Currently, they are widely used in functional beverages. Its capacity is generally less than 1000m l, equipment investment is less, the material has a flexible, transparent, beautiful, colorful and decorative effect of the material, its chemical stability is high and can be used for many times. However, there are also disadvantages such as low mechanical strength, fragility, heavy weight, high cost, and inconvenience of transporting a unit article, and it is easy to burst when the temperature difference is high. Therefore, in recent years, with the rise of PET materials, glass bottles have been used in beer and functional beverages, but have not been used in other beverages. Due to the limitation of sterilization conditions, glass bottles are generally only used for the packaging of acidic tea beverages (PH<4.5), and the shelf life is about 6 months. Some overseas ice tea beverages are packaged in this package.

2.2 Tinplate cans

Divided into three-piece cans and two-piece cans similar to aluminum cans. Since the two-piece cans have special requirements for the stamping, tensile properties and canning equipment of tinplate materials, currently some Japanese manufacturers have the production capacity and use such packaging in canned oolong tea, green tea and other beverages. The area is still rare. The main specifications of the three-piece cans are 206#, 209# three-necked cans and 5133# cans. The three-piece can is one of the types of packaging widely used by early tea beverage manufacturers. There are four main reasons: First, the investment cost for filling and sterilizing equipment for three-piece cans is relatively low; second, the technical requirements for processing tea beverages are not high. Even if a small amount of sediment is produced during the storage, there is little effect on the sensory quality of the beverage. Thirdly, the three-piece can is suitable for the packaging of various tea beverages and other types of beverages. It has good compatibility and saves equipment investment costs. Fourth, the shelf life of products is longer, generally up to one to two years. The tea beverages currently using tinplate cans are mainly tea beverages and milk tea beverages.

2.3 Aluminum cans

The main specifications are common 350ml cans. Mostly used for beer, carbonated beverages and other steam beverage packaging. At present, it is mainly used for carbonated tea beverages, such as sun rising ice tea. With the success of research on the liquid nitrogen filling technology in tea beverages by Japanese authorities, the disadvantages of easy deformation of aluminum cans are solved, and they are now also used in the packaging of pure tea beverages such as Oolong tea. The cost of filling and sterilizing equipment is slightly higher than that of the three-piece cans, but the price of packaging materials is slightly lower, and the materials are recycled and recycled. Product shelf life can also be more than a year. However, as a packaging of liquid tea beverages, the technology and equipment for beverage nitrogen filling and sterilization are high in technical content, so domestic applications in tea and tea beverages are rare, and the ascendant series of tea beverages currently use aluminum that is filled with nitrogen. Canned packaging.

2.4 aseptic composite aluminum paper bag

At present, there are mainly Tetra Pak A lfa-Lava l Group's Tetra Pak and the PKL V e rp a rkun ge ssy-stem e Gm bH. package. The main specifications are: Lele Pack, 5 kinds of Traditional (Aseptic) Bags, Tetra Pak (Aseptic) Bags, Tetra Pak, Tetra Pak, and Tetra Crown. Capacity ranges from 125 to 2000 ml. Kang Meibao has three series of C b5, C b6, and C b7, and a total of 20 common specifications with a capacity of 150 to 1100 ml. At present, Tetra Baked aseptic packaging is most widely used in tea beverages, and is generally used for packaging of iced tea, fruity tea beverages, and mixed wheat teas, such as uniform iced tea, iced green tea, and Kangshifu lemon black tea. The use of bulk Tetra Pak (above 375 ml) in liquid oolong tea has also begun to appear. The one-time investment cost of the equipment for aseptic composite aluminum paper bags is very high (usually 50-600,000 US dollars), but the packaging materials are cheap, only about 50% of the tinplate cans. Moreover, packaging materials are light in weight, have a small space for finished products to be stored, and have low transportation costs. This is a better choice for enterprises with strong capital strength. As a tea beverage package, product shelf life is generally between 6 months to one year.

2.5 PET bottles

PET is polyethylene terephthalate, a saturated linear thermoplastic plastic, referred to as linear polyester. PET bottles are light in weight, high in strength, colorless and transparent, have a high surface gloss, a glassy appearance, good plasticity and mechanical properties, and are non-toxic and odorless. They also have moderate material costs (the domestic bottle-grade PET pellets cost 9,000 yuan/ton). In recent years, PET bottles have been widely used in carbonated drinks, mineral water, pure water packaging. Because ordinary PET bottles are not heat-resistant, and the temperature is higher than 65°C, they will shrink and deform. Therefore, there are fewer non-heat-resistant PET bottles used as tea beverages at home and abroad. Because the liquid tea beverage production process using such packaging should use ultra-high temperature instantaneous sterilization or ultrafiltration filter bacteria (because the liquid tea beverage is rich in easily reducing substances such as tea polyphenols, it can not be used for ozone sterilization), in the material temperature Aseptic filling below 60°C requires high technical content and stability to the production line. At present, non-heat-resistant PET bottles are mainly tea-separated tea beverages. The water in the bottle is sterilized with ozone and sterilized by UV. The cold-soluble instant tea powder with 1 to 2 g is sealed in the bottle cap, and the tea is mixed when drinking. , you can get a bottle of authentic tea beverages, such as the rising sun to become a series of tea drinks. As Nissei ASB Machinery Co., Ltd. of Japan develops and produces heat-resistant PET bottles that can withstand filling temperatures of up to 95°C, PET bottles have been increasingly used in the packaging of tea beverages. Its 500ml heat-resistant PET bottle is one of the most commonly used tea beverage packages in China. Among the many tea drink manufacturers in Japan, the heat-resistant PET bottles are most widely used in the packaging of oolong tea beverages. This is mainly because the PET bottles are transparent and the quality of the internal beverages can be observed with the naked eye while the original ones are in cans and Tetra bags. The small amount of precipitate that is allowed to exist within the PET bottle will be perceived by consumers as a sign of poor quality. Compared with green tea, black tea and other liquid beverages, Oolong tea is less prone to precipitation during storage and has little change in color and stability. If PET bottles are used as packaging materials for black tea and green tea liquid beverages, the problem of sedimentation and discoloration during the storage of tea beverages must be thoroughly resolved. At present, tea-type green tea and black tea beverages packaged in heat-resistant PET bottles are used in China, and precipitation problems in the storage process are still one of the distressing issues for tea beverage production companies. With the continuous development of high-quality anti-precipitating instant tea powder and concentrated tea juice new processing technology of instant tea powder raw material manufacturers, this problem has been gradually solved.

2.6 other plastic bottles

At present, there are several kinds of polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (BOPP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and composite materials. The reinforced polyethylene bottle made by adding titanium dioxide to the polyethylene material is mainly used for the packaging of milk beverages such as fruit milk. Generally resistant to high temperatures around 100°C, it can be pasteurized directly. However, aluminum foil seals are generally used. The oxygen-barrier properties of packaging are poor, and it is not suitable as a tea beverage packaging material. There are very few tea beverage manufacturers in China that use this type of packaging. The shelf life of the product is less than 6 months, and the color of the beverage during storage is prone to deterioration (especially for green tea. obvious). Because the bottle wall of the polypropylene bottle is thin, its oxygen barrier is poor. Even if the amount of antioxidant is increased, it is difficult to reach the shelf life of the tea soup drink. It is generally only used for tea flavored tea drinks with low tea ingredients. . The new polypropylene bottles currently researched have increased the thickness of the bottle wall, that is, increased the amount of polypropylene in a single bottle. Currently, they can also be used for the packaging of general tea beverages. Because of the safety of the material itself to the human body, polyvinyl chloride bottles are now being used less and less in beverages. PVC packaging is rarely used in tea beverages. Due to its low price, good barrier property, and high temperature resistance, composite materials are often used for soft canned foods, but the materials themselves have many odors after high-temperature sterilization (commonly known as plastic taste). They are used in tea beverages to affect the flavor of tea, and they are also good for pure tea. The influence of beverages is even greater, and it is generally less used.

3, Japan and China Taiwan tea

In the development of beverage packaging, Japan has been involved in the field of tea beverages since the early 80's when it developed canned oolong tea. In 1981, Ito Park launched the first 350m can of oolong tea (three-piece tin cans) on the Japanese market. Subsequently, many companies launched their own brands, a wide range of tea beverages, including black tea, green tea, oolong tea, and mixed tea beverages. For more than a decade, sales of tea beverages have maintained rapid growth in the Japanese market. In 1994, it was 20.7%, second only to carbonated drinks (25.2%), and only oolong tea beverage production reached close to 1.4 million KL. In 1995, sales of tea beverages and carbonated beverages were basically flat. With the deep research on the production technology of tea beverages and the development of beverage packaging materials, tea beverages such as tin cans, Tetra Pak, aluminum cans, and PET bottles have appeared on the Japanese market. In recent years, PET bottles have become One of the mainstream tea beverage packaging.

Taiwan Province of China is currently one of the regions with the best sales of tea beverages internationally. In 1993, the market share of tea beverages in all types of beverages had reached the first place (32.5%). In recent years, good sales momentum has been maintained (market share: 36.3% in 1994 and 38.6% in 1995). At present, there are more than 50 companies in Taiwan that produce tea beverages. Almost every manufacturer has launched its own brand of three tin cans (250 ml, 350 ml). However, in order to compete for the market, and guide consumption, various manufacturers have launched new brands, and new packaging, such as Tetra Pak, glass bottles, aluminum cans, and PET bottled tea beverages have appeared in the tea beverage market one after another. Since 1994, with the increase in the consumption of tea drinks for families and banquets, large-packaged tea beverages are increasingly favored by consumers. Such as Xinxi's Kaixi 900m l (EPA-PAK) oolong tea, Heisong's 1.5L PET bottled oolong tea, Rosa's series of large-capacity PET bottled foamed green tea, and bubble black tea are both big wins and sales. Created a good result.

4, China's tea beverage packaging materials

There is a wide variety of packaging materials used in tea beverages sold on the domestic market. Currently, PET bottles and aluminum cans are the main products. This is mainly due to the fact that the tea beverage market in China has just moved from the introduction period to the growth period. Earlier use of tinplate three-piece cans as a tea beverage packaging company has slowly faded out due to high product costs and high selling prices. Heat-resistant PET bottle tea beverage processing technology is simple, easy to control quality, SMEs easy to start. Aluminium cans are affected by the strong sales of domestic carbonated tea beverages, and their annual consumption in tea beverages is very considerable.

Some manufacturers use non-heat-resistant PET bottles as tea beverage packaging containers, but the quality of most products is not very good, and there are serious browning, precipitation, deterioration and other phenomena in the tea soup during the shelf life. This is because most manufacturers use mineral water filling lines as PET bottled tea beverage production equipment, and the current mineral water filling line equipment is not suitable for aseptic filling of tea beverages or hot filling at around 60°C. The equipment is poor in stability, the environment during filling is also unstable, and it is prone to secondary pollution, resulting in excessive bacteria and deterioration of the tea soup.

At present, the use of sterile Tetra Pak as tea beverage packaging is basically Taiwanese-funded enterprises, such as Uniform, Master Kong, life, etc. In addition, such as Asahi Sheng, Huiyuan, Shenhui, Huierkang also used, the financial strength of some of these manufacturers More solid, but also has a wealth of experience in the production of tea beverages. Their products have good taste, stable quality and optimistic sales. In recent years, the market share of tea beverage sales in China is very high.

5. Development trend of tea beverage packaging

Tea beverages are primarily a type of beverage, so almost all packages that appear in other types of beverages are used in tea beverages. However, tea beverages have their own characteristics: 1 Polyphenols and their oxidation products in tea beverages can easily become cloudy and precipitated with caffeine, soluble protein and pectin during storage; 2 Polyphenols are also easy Oxidation, easy to form black complexes with iron ions, resulting in deterioration of the color and flavor of the beverage; 3 tea soup is sterilized by high temperature for a long time, the aroma is easily lost and the cooked soup taste (cooked taste) is easily generated, thereby affecting the tea beverage itself Flavor; 5 tea beverages are mostly low acid beverages (PH ≥ 4.5), generally used high-temperature sterilization; 5 tea beverages are mostly popular beverages, need to stimulate consumers' desire for purchase at low prices.

At present, most beverage manufacturers consider how to choose the type of packaging from the one-time investment cost and production cost of the equipment, while ignoring the characteristics of the tea beverage itself. As far as the various types of packaging appear on the market today, aseptic composite aluminum paper bags and PET bottles are more suitable for the packaging of tea beverages. They are chemically stable and do not react chemically with the substances in the tea broth. The sterilization process in the process uses ultra-high temperature flash sterilization (UH T). The filling process generally uses aseptic filling or hot filling to maintain the flavor of the tea field. In addition, aseptic composite aluminum paper bags and PET bottles can be made into larger-capacity packaging, which is suitable for family and banquet consumption. From the perspective of the development of tea beverage packaging in Japan and Taiwan in recent years, it can also be found that large-capacity packaging is a trend.

In addition, the weight of each 1L volume of Tetra Pak is 28g, the PET bottle is 56g, the aluminum can is 61g, the tin can is 137g, and the glass bottle is 360g. It can be seen that the Tetra Pak and PET bottles are light in weight and contain more liquid per unit weight, which can minimize the cost of packaging materials. On the other hand, due to the light weight of packaging materials, only 5% to 10% of the transportation cost of a finished product is used for packaging materials, and up to 40% for glass bottles. The low cost of packaging materials and transportation leads to a reduction in production costs. This is one of the reasons why most manufacturers prefer to invest in high equipment costs.

After years of development and changes in the beverage industry, not only packaging materials are required to be beautiful, portable and ready to drink, but as people's awareness of environmental protection has increased, the requirements for recyclability of materials have become higher and higher. Especially in recent years, the human living environment has been deteriorating, and “green packaging” has gained universal attention and recognition. The composite aluminum paper bag requires less material per package for one liter of beverage, and produces less waste and is easily degraded in nature; PET materials can be reused and recycled for many times, both of which can be regarded as environmentally friendly packaging. With the development of corresponding policies and regulations in many countries in recent years, and the use of non-recyclable and hardly degradable substances as packaging materials, green packaging will be one of the trends in the development of tea beverage packaging materials in the future.

It can be foreseen that with the development of the beverage industry and the packaging industry, portable ready-to-drink, high-capacity, low-cost materials, favorable products to maintain a good flavor, green environmental protection, will be the future direction of tea beverage packaging, and PET bottles, no The compound aluminum paper bag is the best tea beverage packaging material that embodies this spirit.