Building an Export Brief from a Reference Product

A brand can like a product long before it knows what to ask its manufacturer to make. A familiar bottle, an appealing ingredient amount and a benefit on the pack can arrive in the sourcing brief as one request.

For an export project, I would settle the intended customer promise early. That choice can affect the specification and the quotation. It is worth making while the team can still change the brief.

Start with one identifiable product

BY-HEALTH's Chinese website presents a Yep collagen peptide, rose and sodium hyaluronate oral liquid in a seven-bottle pack. Each bottle is 50mL, with a stated intake of one bottle daily. The site identifies it as a Chinese health food and gives a function expression that translates as "helps improve skin moisture." The published ingredient list includes collagen peptide powder, roselle extract, rose extract and sodium hyaluronate.^[1]

The pack images reviewed for the original Newsletter show 5000mg of collagen peptide powder added per bottle. They give the commercial team a concrete reference for the portion, composition and positioning.^[2] The EU comparison below is a hypothetical development decision. It does not describe a Yep export project or assess the product's efficacy.

Choose the claim route before comparing quotations

The EU's 2013 decision refused authorisation for the specified hyaluronic acid skin-hydration claim. That decision concerns an ingredient claim and the evidence submitted for it. It does not assess Yep's composite drink.^[3]

A permitted vitamin C claim concerns normal collagen formation for normal skin function. Its condition requires the food to qualify at least as a source of vitamin C.^[4][6] A developer considering that route would need to establish the relevant content and use conditions for the intended version.

The customer promise changes with this choice. A brand pursuing skin-hydration positioning and a brand pursuing a vitamin C skin-function claim may end up with different development briefs. The commercial team needs to decide whether the revised proposition still gives customers a reason to buy.

Give each number a clear job

The front-pack powder amount is easy to carry into a quotation. The back-pack marker needs a separate line. In the reviewed images, hydroxyproline is given as 665.0mg per 100mL. At the stated 50mL daily portion, that is 332.5mg of the marker.^[2]

Those figures answer different measurement questions. Neither gives the vitamin C content needed to evaluate the alternative claim route. Vitamin C was not separately listed as an added ingredient in the reviewed materials; its actual content was not established.

An OEM could accurately quote the powder-addition requirement while the claim-bearing composition remained unresolved. The sourcing team would then have a price for an incomplete brief.

Make the intended version visible

Consider a brand keeping the small daily liquid format and investigating the vitamin C route for an EU version. The brief would identify that intended promise and ask for the evidence needed to support its composition. It could also preserve the powder-addition target as a separate commercial choice.

The result might require a formulation change. It might already meet the selected conditions. That has to be established for the actual version; adding a nutrient does not settle the rest of a product's market-access requirements.

A complete export dossier, nutrition panel, sodium hyaluronate dose and ingredient-source specifications were outside the reviewed public material. Product classification, ingredient admission, labelling and national sale requirements still need their own review. The EU comparison does not stand in for Middle East or Southeast Asian rules.

For the commercial team, the immediate decision is whether the proposition remains worth developing once its target-market promise is explicit. That is a useful decision to make before the next quotation round.