Homegrown Hong Kong: the wholesome story of Vitasoy

Like many Hongkongers, I find it impossible to remain impartial when it comes to Vitasoy. Years ago, when my wife and I lived in Montreal, we made regular trips to Chinese supermarkets to stock up on cartons of malted soy milk and lemon tea. For her, it was a taste of home. For me, it evoked the city that had captivated me since my first visit.

We aren’t alone. Since it was introduced in 1940 by Lo Kwee-seong, Vitasoy has become one of those quintessential Hong Kong brands whose products are caught up in the city’s pop culture and collective memory.

“Childhood in a box” is how the company’s distinctive soy milk is described by Bourree Lam, a Hong Kong journalist now based in New York.

Others love the seasonal warm soy milk sold in glass bottles. “One of my favourite things to do in Hong Kong’s short winter is to buy a glass bottle of warm malted Vitasoy from the cart,” says food writer Janice Leung Hayes.

British-born Alice Chan grew up drinking Vitasoy in London. “My dad used to buy it in bulk from the big Wing Yip supermarket in Croydon,” she says. “Friends at school – none of them Chinese – thought it was absolutely rancid, which they decided without having tried it first, obviously.”

But Vitasoy is not simply nostalgia. It’s one of a few classic Hong Kong brands, such as Lee Kum Kee or Wing Wah Bakery, that have managed to become international successes without losing touch with their local identity. And it’s doing well: Vitasoy’s revenue grew 10 per cent last year as consumers shunned syrupy soft drinks for those made with natural ingredients.

Health was one of the motivating factors behind the creation of Vitasoy in 1940. Lo Kwee-seong, a Hakka entrepreneur born in Guangdong and raised in British Malaya, arrived here when he was 20 years old. In 1937, after finishing a degree in economics at the University of Hong Kong, Lo travelled to Shanghai, where he attended a talk by Julean Arnold, the commercial attaché to the American embassy in Nanjing.