First Products from GLG and ANOC JV Coming to Market
The Company has announced that AN0C’s first six beverage products have been finalized, market tested and approved by all required government departments for sale nationwide in China.
3/14/2011 --- GLG Life Tech Corporation, the vertically-integrated leader in the agricultural and commercial development of high quality stevia, announces a progress update on its China joint venture AN0C. The Company has announced that AN0C’s first six beverage products have been finalized, market tested and approved by all required government departments for sale nationwide in China.
AN0C will launch the following six SKUs the last week of March:
1) Ready-to-drink (RTD) Iced Black Tea – Zero Calories
2) RTD Iced Black Tea – Low Calorie1
3) RTD Iced Green Tea – Zero Calories
4) RTD Iced Green Tea – Low Calorie
5) RTD Iced Jasmine Tea – Zero Calories
6) RTD Iced Jasmine Tea – Low Calorie
Low calorie means approximately 1/3 the sugar of comparable leading national brands of RTD teas currently on the market.
These first six AN0C beverages will be the first products launched in China that are sweetened with stevia and have zero calories, or which contain only one-third the calories of a comparable leading national RTD brand and use stevia. The AN0C product development process for these first six SKUs underwent market testing to ensure final formulations met consumer taste requirements. Most market leading products in China are sweetened with sugar. The goal of the AN0C product development team has been to replicate a similar taste experience to sugar sweetened RTD teas while utilizing stevia as the main sweetener.
The AN0C products have now received all required government approvals for sale nationwide in China. These approvals include an analysis from a government lab to verify calorie count, to verify that the zero-calorie SKUs contain no sugar, and for the approval of each product’s labeling.
GLG Chairman and AN0C CEO Dr. Luke Zhang stated, “Today’s announcement is another important milestone in AN0C’s business plan. RTD teas have been one of the fastest growing beverage categories in China since 2000. Black tea, green tea and jasmine tea drinks are the three most common demanded by Chinese consumers. This is why we have chosen these for the first launch of AN0C beverages, which is on schedule for the last week of March. Further, our management team is a highly experienced and motivated group of professionals who has done a fantastic job to finalize the formulation of these first six products after positive market testing as well as successfully gain government approval in order to have everything ready on time. GLG and the AN0C team are proud to bring to China healthy RTD tea beverage alternatives in one of the largest beverage categories in China.”
