Introduction:In recent years, new-style tea beverage brands have frequently made headlines due to food safety issues, with Mixue Ice Cream & Tea and Yihetang drawing widespread attention for using expired ingredients. This article delves into the management and operational loopholes behind these incidents, explores how brands can balance quality and safety amid rapid expansion, and offers practical advice for tea beverage practitioners and consumers in making choices and running businesses.

Walk into any shopping mall, and you’re likely to see a proliferation of new-style tea shops. Whether on busy weekdays or relaxing weekends, many young people are accustomed to boosting their energy with a cup of milk tea or fruit tea. However, as consumer demand continues to rise, some brands have overlooked the most basic food safety controls in their expansion efforts.

Recently, well-known budget tea beverage brands Mixue Ice Cream & Tea and Yihetang were once again caught by authorities using expired raw materials, sparking public outcry. On July 4, according to information from Chinese official websites, a Yihetang outlet in Hunan was fined 5,976 yuan by the Yueyang County Market Supervision Administration for using pudding beyond its shelf life to prepare and sell 8 cups of "Yi Bei Shao Xian Cao" milk tea. On the same day, a Mixue Ice Cream & Tea store in Beijing was also penalized 5,000 yuan by the Fengtai District Market Supervision Bureau for storing opened frozen lychee juice for two days beyond the store’s stipulated shelf life.

This is not an isolated incident. Prior to this, Yihetang was exposed by media for shocking backstage operations: unhygienic ingredient storage environments, use of moldy fruits, relabeling and selling of expired ingredients, and even staff showing a lax attitude toward food safety, bluntly stating that “as long as it doesn’t kill the customer, it’s fine” when serving drinks. Mixue Ice Cream & Tea has also been repeatedly reported for altering the opening dates of ingredients, using overnight tea and ice cream mix, and serving unwashed fresh fruits, with various regulatory authorities issuing fines across different locations.

Notably, these issues are not limited to brands that focus on low-price strategies. Some mid-to-high-end direct-operated tea beverage stores have also been exposed for hygiene and management chaos. Whether franchised or directly operated, rapid expansion has led to common industry concerns such as insufficient staff training, inexperienced store managers, and lax control over ingredients.

Many store managers, faced with daily heavy operational and sales targets, often misjudge inventory and ingredient management, leading to large amounts of food not being used in time and becoming expired. Yet, to reduce losses, some outlets choose to continue using ingredients that should have been discarded. Coupled with high staff turnover, many new employees start work without having received complete hygiene and operational training, not only perpetuating incorrect practices but potentially exacerbating problems due to lack of awareness.

The core of food safety lies in “people.” A store manager with professional competence and a sense of responsibility can significantly improve the overall management level of a store, but under the pressure of a brand’s rapid expansion, finding such individuals is not easy. Moreover, under current regulations, even if a brand is subject to administrative penalties, the deterrent effect on frontline staff remains limited, leading some grassroots employees to take a perfunctory attitude toward food safety issues.

Industry insiders have long warned that excessive expansion may pose dual risks to brand image and food safety. Zhu Danpeng, a Chinese food industry analyst, once pointed out: “If a brand only pursues scale and speed while neglecting basic management and quality control, it will eventually pay the price.”

For consumers, when choosing tea beverages, in addition to taste, attention should also be paid to whether the brand has transparent quality control measures in place, such as the sources of ingredients, storage conditions, and preparation processes. For practitioners, establishing comprehensive training systems, strengthening store manager accountability, and implementing daily ingredient inventory checks and waste standards are all fundamental steps to ensuring food safety.

The new-style tea beverage market remains vibrant and full of opportunities, but while pursuing cup sales and revenue, how to uphold the bottom line of food safety will be the key to a brand’s long-term success.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.