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Making Vitasoy “Local” in Post-World War II Hong Kong: Traditionalizing Modernity, Engineering Progress, Nurturing Aspirations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2021

John D. Wong
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Abstract

Now considered a quintessential Hong Kong household food product, Vitasoy won the approval of local consumers only in the post–World War II period as its producer capitalized on the discourse of modern nutritional science, leveraged technological breakthroughs, and positioned the soy beverage to respond to a growing clientele experiencing economic growth and lifestyle transformation. In the emerging market and sociocultural conditions of postwar Hong Kong, Vitasoy's producer created a local beverage that articulated for the city a modernity that originated in a Chinese national discourse but then blossomed into a celebration of the lifestyle that economic progress enabled.

Keywords

Hong Kong“local” foodmodernityconsumerismemerging markettechnological transfer
Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 95 , Issue 2 , Summer 2021 , pp. 275 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2021

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Footnotes

I would like to acknowledge the sponsorship of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (GRF 17604617; CRF C7011-16G), as well as the Social Science Research Council's support for the 2018 workshop “InterAsian Connections VI: Hanoi,” from which I received helpful feedback on this article. I would like to thank in particular Wendy Fu, Melissa Caldwell, Izumi Nakayama, and Matthew Lowenstein for their detailed comments.

References

1 Christopher DeWolf, “Homegrown Hong Kong: The Wholesome Story of Vitasoy,” South China Morning Post, 5 Apr. 2017.

2 Vitasoy North America, “During cold weather when I attending grammar school,” Facebook, 28 Aug. 2017, https://www.facebook.com/MyVitasoy/photos/a.10155636676644699/10155636696184699. See also Files Relating to Applications for Television Advertising—Vitasoy (2), Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (documents dated 18 Mar. 1991, 30 Apr. 1991, 10 Mar. 1992), HKRS2470-1-581, Hong Kong Public Records Office (hereafter HKPRO), which shows how Vitasoy's television advisements sold the beverage on nostalgia.

3 Austin, Gareth, Dávila, Carlos, and Jones, Geoffrey, “The Alternative Business History: Business in Emerging Markets,” Business History Review 91, no. 3 (2017): 537–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 This local manifestation echoes James L. Watson's call “to situate the global in the local” in exploring the globalization of food. Watson, Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia (Stanford, CA, 1997), ix.

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9 Jia-Chen Fu, The Other Milk: Reinventing Soy in Republican China (Seattle, 2018); Fu, “Confronting the Cow: Soybean Milk and the Fashioning of a Chinese Diary Alternative,” in Moral Foods: The Construction of Nutrition and Health in Modern Asia, ed. Angela Ki Che Leung and Melissa L. Caldwell (Honolulu, 2019), 47–65.

10 This discourse of Western salvation resonates with Emma McDonell's critique of “global miracle food” for its paternal logic and the attempt of the “curative metaphor” to locate a solution in Western philanthropy or economic development. McDonell, “Miracle Foods: Quinoa, Curative Metaphors, and the Depoliticization of Global Hunger Politics,” Gastronomica 15, no. 4 (2015): 70–85.

11 Jia-Chen Fu examines “the materiality of the milk bottle” as an instrumental component of Vitasoy's effort to market the soymilk as a substitute for cow's milk to an idealized community of aspiring, health-conscious consumers. Fu, “The Tyranny of the Bottle: Vitasoy and the Cultural Politics of Packaging,” Worldwide Waste: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 1, no. 1 (2018): 4. Vitasoy's story corroborates claims that commercial strategies create new patterns of food consumption as they alter social and economic practices. Warren Belasco and Philip Scranton, eds., Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies (London, 2002).

12 Wai-keung Chung, “Made in China or Made in Hong Kong? National Goods and the Hong Kong Business Community,” in Colonial Hong Kong and Modern China: Interaction and Reintegration, ed. Pui-tak Lee (Hong Kong, 2005), 185–98; Gordon Mathews and Tai-lok Lui, eds., Consuming Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 2001).

13 Fu, Other Milk. This earlier phenomenon parallels “nutritionism,” or the reductive interpretation of the role of nutrients in bodily health, that Gyorgy Scrinis notes of dietary guidance. Scrinis, Nutritionism: The Science and Politics of Dietary Advice (New York, 2013).

14 Ines Prodöhl, “Versatile and Cheap: A Global History of Soy in the First Half of the Twentieth Century,” Journal of Global History 8, no. 3 (2013): 461–82.

15 The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (Weekly), 13 Apr. 1911, 2.

16 South China Morning Post (SCMP), 12 Oct. 1932, 12.

17 SCMP, 2 Feb. 1940, 8.

18 SCMP, 15 Feb. 1940, 7.

19 Lo Shuk Ying, 盧淑櫻, 母乳與牛奶 : 近代中國母親角色的重塑 (1895–1937) [Muru yu niunai: Jindai Zhongguo muqin juese de chongsu (1895–1937)] [Breast milk and cow's milk: the reshaping of the role of mothers in modern China (1895–1937)] (Hong Kong, 2018), chap. 3; R-22-3-718 (information on condensed milk products and their producers, 1942), S-118-1-17 (market information on dairy products, 1942–1945), U38-2-2394 (market information on dairy products, 1941–1942), U38-5-86 (dairy products, 1942–1943), Shanghai Municipal Archives (hereafter SMA).

20 Section IV General Character of Dietaries in a report titled “Nutrition in Hong Kong,” which the Governor of Hong Kong enclosed in his letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies dated 21 Mar. 1940, CO 859/33/2, The National Archives of the UK (hereafter TNA). The soybean was held in low esteem by the ancient Chinese as well; H. T. Huang, “Early Uses of Soybean in Chinese History,” in The World of Soy, ed. Sidney W. Mintz, Chee-Beng Tan, and Christine M. Du Bois (Singapore, 2008), 46–47. This phenomenon parallels the perception of the soybean not as human food but as an industrial crop in its early history in North America. Mintz, Tan, and Du Bois, “Introduction: The Significance of Soy,” in Mintz, Tan, and Du Bois, World of Soy, 4.

21 SCMP, 18 Apr. 1941, 8. In certain mainland Chinese cities, Western science foregrounded children in the measure of milk's social and commercial value (Fu, Other Milk).

22 Appendix C1 Soy Bean Milk, “Nutrition in Hong Kong,” CO 859/33/2, TNA.

23 SCMP, 11 Mar. 1940, 15. The company was incorporated in Hong Kong on March 6, 1940. “Memorandum and Articles of Association of The Hong Kong Soya Bean Products Company, Limited. Incorporated the 6th day of March 1940,” HKRS122-5-194, HKPRO.

24 “115th Congregation (1982): Lo Kwee Seong, Doctor of Laws honoris causa,” University of Hong Kong, accessed 20 May 2021, https://www4.hku.hk/hongrads/graduates/c-b-e-b-a-kwee-seong-lo-lo-kwee-seong.

25 SCMP, 11 Mar. 1940, 15.

26 SCMP, 11 Mar. 1940, 15.

27 Choi Po King, 厚生與創業 Enriching Lives and Founding a Business: Vitasoy Looks Back over Fifty Years (1940–1990) (Hong Kong, 1990), 19.

28 Ta Kung Pao 大公報 (TKP) 1 Sep. 1941, 4.

29 Hong Kong Government Gazette, Supplement, 26 July 1940.

30 Winston Lo Yau-lai, interview, 6 Oct. 2008, 4, Hong Kong Heritage Project.

31 Fu describes a similar situation in Shanghai around the same time, where a producer requested endorsement for its product “Vito-Milk” while a health official urged that the product be called “bean milk” in Chinese characters. Fu, Other Milk, 170–72.

32 Vitasoy adopted its logo design in Chinese in 1940 (TKP, 9 Mar. 1940, 1). In the 1940s, its earliest packaging in the form of a wide-rimmed milk bottle featured this logo; see “Earliest Vitasoy Bottle,” Hong Kong Memory Project, accessed 22 Mar. 2019, https://www.hkmemory.hk/MHK/collections/Soya_Bean_Milk/vitasoy_snapshots/index.html.

33 Compared with prewar Shanghai, where there was a vibrant market of soymilk vendors, Hong Kong did not offer a ready customer base for this soy-based beverage. On Shanghai, see R1-16-1013 (list of soymilk vendors, Mar. 1934), SMA.

34 TKP, 9 Mar. 1940.

35 Choi, Enriching Lives, 19–20.

36 SCMP, 4 Jan. 1946, 6; 5 Jan. 1946, 6. Lane Crawford, founded shortly after the establishment of Hong Kong as a British colony, is a retail outlet specializing in high-end products; Dairy Farm, incorporated in Hong Kong in 1886, bred imported cattle locally to supply fresh milk.

37 SCMP, 14 Mar. 1947, 5.

38 Annual report of the Education Department for the year ending 31 Mar. 1947, 27; Annual report of the Education Department for the year ending 31 Mar. 1948, 23; Annual report of the Education Department for the year ending 31 Mar. 1949, 24, CO 1045/168, TNA. School lunch programs were not unique to postwar Hong Kong. On school lunches as an educational phenomenon, see Suzanne Rice and A. G. Rud, eds., Educational Dimensions of School Lunch: Critical Perspectives (Cham, Switzerland, 2018). On the politics of school lunches and the competing agenda of the various interested parties, see Susan Levine, School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America's Favorite Welfare Program (Princeton, NJ, 2008).

39 Kung Sheung Evening News 工商晚報 (KSEN), 19 Apr. 1948, 4.

40 SCMP, 1 Oct. 1949, 8.

41 SCMP, 30 Sep. 1949, 3. In Shanghai, the same narrative gained currency both in the aftermath of the founding of the People's Republic of China and during the reform era. In 1952, official reports linked the supply of soymilk to schoolchildren's health. 关于学校卫生豆浆供应站要求拨款建筑屋三间的报告, 20 Aug. 1952, B105-5-605-53, SMA. In 1980, the authorities explored the possibility of supplying university and high school students with fortified soymilk “in order to alleviate the shortage of fresh [cow's] milk.”上海市第二商业局 30 May 1980, B98-6-391, SMA.

42 Colonial Social Welfare Advisory Committee's report on “The Child at School,” dated 7 Jul. 1950, CO 859/244/9, TNA.

43 SCMP, 17 Nov. 1946, 1.

44 Wah Kiu Yat Pao 華僑日報 (WKYP), 11 May 1947, 3.

45 “Fresh Milk—Price of …, from 16 Jun. 1950 to 7 Nov. 1952,” HKRS41-1-6212, HKPRO.

46 SCMP, 26 Nov. 1952, 13.

47 Choi, Enriching Lives, 28–30.

48 SCMP, 14 June 1964, 8.

49 SCMP, 9 Mar. 1970, 35; Choi, Enriching Lives, 38–39, 60–61, Appendix IV.

50 WKYP, 28 Sep. 1958, 9.

51 SCMP 7 June 1957, 13; Choi, Enriching Lives, 30, 36–37, 47–48.

52 KSEN, 26 Apr. 1957, 4; WKYP, 4 June 1957, 10.

53 SCMP, 7 June 1957, 13.

54 SCMP, 7 June 1957, 13; Choi, Enriching Lives, 48–49.

55 WKYP, 14 Sep. 1960, 7; 11 Oct. 1960, 8; Kung Sheung Morning News 工商日報(KSMN), 12 Oct. 1960, 7.

56 The spread of technological know-how also enabled the gradual expansion of such consumption of “modernity” at multiple locations in similar periods. In Singapore, Yeo Hiap Seng (YHS) experimented with different technologies for its soy beverage Beanvit. In 1955, the Fairs and Exhibition in Ipoh featured YHS's Beanvit as a soymilk catering to the ethnic Chinese market. While YHS had initially offered canned Beanvit, the company switched to promotion of the bottled version of the soymilk in 1960. Singapore Free Press, 7 Oct. 1955, 8; Nanyang Siang Pau, 30 Sep. 1955, 11; 3 Oct. 1957, 16; 15 July 1960, 6; Straits Times, 3 June 1960, 14.

57 Tai-lok Lui, “Rearguard Politics: Hong Kong's Middle Class,” Developing Economies 41, no. 2 (2003): 161–83; Annie Hau-nung Chan, “Middle-Class Formation and Consumption in Hong Kong,” in Consumption in Asia: Lifestyle and Identities, ed. Beng-Huat Chua (London, 2000), 98–134.

58 WKYP, 13 Jan. 1960, 10.

59 New York Times, 18 Sep. 1955, 21.

60 WKYP, 23 Aug. 1954, 5.

61 SCMP, 9 Feb. 1937, 8.

62 SCMP, 15 Apr. 1937, 11.

63 SCMP, 12 May 1937, 10.

64 Zhao Enci, 趙恩賜, “豆漿之物理及化學性質之研究” [An investigation of the physical and chemical materiality of soymilk], Lingnan Journal 2, no. 3 (1931): 19.

65 SCMP, 14 June 1964, 8. Fruits and vegetables eaten raw or lightly cooked are considered “cooling,” or hon-loeng, and drinking cold drinks can lead to yang deficiency. Katherine Gould-Martin, “Hot Cold Clean Poison and Dirt: Chinese Folk Medical Categories,” Social Science & Medicine 12, no. 1B (1978): 39; Youzhi Sun, Pei Liu, Yi Zhao, Lei Jia, Yanhua He, Steve An Xue, Xiao Zheng, et al., “Characteristics of TCM Constitutions of Adult Chinese Women in Hong Kong and Identification of Related Influencing Factors: A Cross-Sectional Survey,” Journal of Translational Medicine 12, no. 140 (2014): 7.

66 SCMP, 30 July 1924, 10.

67 SCMP, 3 June 1954, 8.

68 SCMP, 20 Dec. 1950, 11; Hong Kong, Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Statistics, 1947–1967 (Hong Kong, 1969), 215.

69 SCMP, 17 Dec. 1952, 9.

70 KSMN, 2 June 1959, 1.

71 TKP, 2 June 1955, 4.

72 KSEN, 2 July 1958, 8.

73 WKYP, 6 July 1958, 3.

74 Access to capital-intensive technology leads to differentiated industry dynamics. Alessandra Tessari and Andrew Godley demonstrate that while the British poultry industry worked with supermarkets in leveraging improvements in refrigeration technologies and shaped the supply lines of frozen birds, the fragmented Italian poultry industry resisted mass production and modernized by innovating around refrigeration processes to produce dry chicken. Tessari and Godley, “Made in Italy, Made in Britain: Quality, Brands and Innovation in the European Poultry Market, 1950–80,” Business History 56, no. 7 (2014): 1057–83.

75 KSMN, 5 Nov. 1957, 8.

76 William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, “K. S. Lo and Vitasoy in Hong Kong and North America: Work with Soyfoods” (unpublished manuscript chapter, Soyinfo Center, Lafayette, CA, 2004), https://www.soyinfocenter.com/HSS/ks_lo_and_vitasoy.php; Choi, Enriching Lives, 41.

77 Choi, Enriching Lives, Appendix I.

78 Quoted in Shurtleff and Aoyagi, “K. S. Lo and Vitasoy,” n.p.

79 Hong Kong, Census and Statistics Department, “Gross Domestic Product (GDP), implicit price deflator of GDP and per capital GDP,” released 14 May 2021, https://www.censtatd.gov.hk/en/web_table.html?id=31.

80 SCMP, 6 Oct. 1959, 8.

81 SCMP, 20 Oct. 1965, 8.

82 Times (London), 21 Apr. 1967.

83 SCMP, 13 Oct. 1965, 9; 14 Oct. 1966, 17; 18 Oct. 1966, 6; 23 Oct. 1967, 12; 22 Mar. 1968, 24; 30 Sept. 1969, 29; TKP, 20 Oct. 1966, 5; WKYP, 30 Sep. 1969, 11.

84 Choi, Enriching Lives, 75.

85 Lo Yau-lai interview, 19–22.

86 SCMP, 7 Nov. 1973, 24.

87 SCMP, 21 Nov. 1975, 40.

88 Choi, Enriching Lives, 56. In Singapore, YHS adopted the Tetra Pak design in 1968, pioneering the production of cardboard-boxed soymilk worldwide (Straits Times, 17 Sep. 1969, 19). Before that, the company had bottled its soymilk product (Nanyang Siang Pau, 15 July 1960, 6). Despite its substantial investments in bottling machinery (Straits Times, 30 Oct. 1962, 14), the company understood the shortcomings of bottling Beanvit. So, to enhance delivery convenience, eliminate the need to return empty bottles, and make it easier for consumers to carry Beanvit (Nanyang Siang Pau, 18 Aug. 1968, 32), YHS turned to Tetra Pak, creating an alternative to its bottled offering.

89 SCMP, 21 Nov. 1975, 40. This technology would catch the attention of the beverage industry as the market revitalized during the reform era in the People's Republic of China. 上海市经济委员会、上海市生产技术局关于锦江食品联合公司从香港引进无菌纸包装软饮料生产线可行性研究的审批意见书, 26 May 1983, B43-1-103-1, SMA.

90 Leonie Ki recounts this famous campaign in 點只廣告咁簡單 [Not simply advertisement] (Hong Kong, 1985), 119–26.

91 In her study of canning, Anna Zeide highlights canners’ battle with the opacity of the package and the need to establish consumer trust. Zeide, Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry (Berkeley, 2018). Instead of being a potential liability, the packaging of Vitasoy accentuated a modern lifestyle for its aspiring consumers.

92 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, U.K., 1983).

93 Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China (Berkeley, 2014).

94 Sean Hsiang-lin Lei, “From Changshan to a New Anti-malarial Drug: Re-networking Chinese Drugs and Excluding Chinese Doctors,” Social Studies of Science 29, no. 3 (1999): 323–58; Sigrid Schmalzer, The People's Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth Century China (Chicago, 2008).

95 Benjamin N. Lawrance and Carolyn de la Peña, eds., Local Foods Meet Global Foodways: Tasting History (Oxford, 2012).

96 On terroir, see McIntyre, Julie, “Worlds in a Wine Glass: Rethinking the Global and the Local,” Global Food History 5, no. 1–2 (2019): 1–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.