Taiwan Bubble Tea Maker Named a SIAL For Change 2026 Sustainability Finalist

Taiwan's Boba Empire named a SIAL For Change 2026 Finalist 🇹🇼 #SIALParis #Sustainability #TaiwanFood

TAICHUNG CITY, TAIWAN, November 13, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In a rice field in Chishang, Taitung, that had fallen quiet under conventional farming, the crested serpent eagle came back after five years. So did the pangolin. That recovery has now carried a Taiwanese bubble tea manufacturer onto a sustainability final stage in Paris.

Empire Eagle Food Co., Ltd., the parent company of the Boba Empire brand, has been named a finalist in the SIAL For Change 2026 award — the only company from Taiwan’s bubble tea industry among the 20 finalists chosen from 226 entries worldwide. The field was competitive: of 226 projects submitted, 122 were shortlisted and only 20 reached the finals. Evaluated by the independent Hyssop CSR consulting team, SIAL For Change is SIAL Paris’s first corporate sustainability (CSR) award — judged not on whether a product tastes good, but on something harder to prove: whether a company’s supply chain genuinely stands up for the land and the people behind it.

That is a pointed question for the bubble tea industry. Now a multi-billion-dollar global category growing at roughly 8 percent a year and led by the Asia-Pacific region, bubble tea also carries a long-standing sustainability critique over single-use packaging, sugar, and plastic waste. In a category expanding fast but under scrutiny, companies that build sustainability into the source of their supply chain — rather than onto the surface of the product — remain rare. Empire Eagle Food’s entry is one of them.

A supply chain that reaches from a tribal valley to the world’s shelves
At the heart of that entry is a supply chain in Chishang, Taitung, in eastern Taiwan. Empire Eagle Food sources its organic black rice from a local Indigenous social enterprise, whose supply chain delivers verified social and ecological outcomes: 50 hectares of certified-organic contract farmland, 10 local farming households with incomes raised by over 10 percent, and the return of four protected species — the crested serpent eagle, pangolin, Formosan serow, and Swinhoe’s frog — over five years of farming.

Empire Eagle Food’s role is to serve as that supply chain’s gateway to the world: through an export network spanning 40+ countries, it carries a supply chain that once served only Taiwan’s domestic market onto the international stage — turning local sustainable farming into purchasing demand that scales with commercial growth.

Sustainability from source to packaging
The model’s flagship product is the company’s Black GABA Rice Matcha Amazake — made from organic black rice powder combined with matcha amazake powder from Japan’s Shizuoka prefecture, a zero-additive, non-alcoholic functional beverage holding the A.A. Taste Award (2 Stars).

That commitment extends beyond the ingredient. In May 2026, Empire Eagle’s fruit tea pouch range won 3rd place in the Packaging category at Italy’s Better Future Award 2026, judged by Italian retail buyers. Compared with conventional cans and PET bottles, its stand-up aluminium pouch carries a lighter unit weight, smaller shipping volume, and lower manufacturing energy — a resource-efficiency advantage aligned with the direction of the European Union’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). The company’s operations are backed by a full set of international standards: FSSC 22000, ISO 22000, HACCP, and HALAL certifications, an AA1000-assured governance framework, and a Dun & Bradstreet ESG rating.

“The whole world assumes bubble tea is just a sweet, trendy drink,” said Mindy Jen, Brand Marketing Director of Empire Eagle Food. “We wanted to prove it can be a supply chain that leaves the land better than it found it — and that it can start in a single valley in Taiwan. This time the jury wasn’t asking whether our drink tastes good. They were asking whether our supply chain holds up. We’re proud that it did.”

As a finalist, Empire Eagle Food is featured on SIAL Paris’s official sustainability trail and is authorized to use the “Selection SIAL For Change 2026” mark.

About Boba Empire & Empire Eagle Food Co., Ltd.
Founded in 2002, Empire Eagle Food Co., Ltd. is a Taiwan-based ingredient manufacturer for the tea-beverage industry and the parent company of the Boba Empire brand. Operating its own factory in Taichung with 20+ years of experience, it is certified to FSSC 22000, ISO 22000, HACCP, and HALAL standards. Its range spans six categories — tea, brewed tea concentrate, powder, dessert premix, toppings, syrup, and equipment & packaging — with OEM/ODM solutions for 200+ partners across 40+ countries. Empire Eagle Food is also the only Taiwanese brand to have swept all four major global taste-evaluation awards — iTQi Superior Taste Award (3 Stars and Crystal Award), UK Great Taste (1 and 2 Stars), Monde Selection, and A.A. Taste Award (2 Stars) — now joined by Better Future Award 2026. Learn more at www.bobaempire.com.

JEN HENG
Empire Eagle Food Co., Ltd
+886 4 2569 4889
mindyjen@empireeaglefood.com
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