The White Paper on China's Plant Extract Industry is brewing to be released

In order to strategically regulate and guide the healthy and sustainable development of China's plant extract industry, the Economic Consulting Center of the National Information Center recently held a review expert consultation meeting for the "White Paper on China's Plant Extract Industry" and the "Research Report on China's Plant Extract Industry", and planned to release the industry white paper.

It is reported that the research and writing team includes more than 20 units such as the National Information Center Economic Consulting Center, Hunan Agricultural University, Chengguang Biotechnology Group Co., Ltd., China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products, China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. They have previously completed internal and industry expert reviews.

Small yet beautiful industry

Our research has found that plant extracts are a "small and beautiful" industry with great potential for development and a complete industrial system. Especially after the cessation of antibiotic resistance in animal feed, aquaculture inputs will become an important application scenario for plant extracts Professor Zeng Jianguo from Hunan Agricultural University said.

In the past, plant extracts were mainly applied abroad and processed in China. With the advancement of research technology in China, our technology is now world leading and our scale is also at the forefront. We hope to be the first to apply them domestically and then abroad in the future, "said Lu Qingguo, Chairman of Chenguang Biotechnology Group.

In the past experience in Xinjiang, tomato meat was used to make tomato sauce, while tomato skins and seeds were used as waste. Later, we made full use of tomato skins and seeds, first extracting tomato seed oil, and then extracting lycopene. The extracted residue was also used to make feed. We also extracted lutein from marigold as a health food raw material, as well as flavonoids and lactic acid as feed raw materials. The plant extract industry is no longer limited to making a single extract as in the past, and can now achieve comprehensive resource utilization. This space is very large, "said Lu Qingguo.

It is reported that the export value of China's plant extraction industry increased from 50 million US dollars in 1997 to over 2.7 billion US dollars in 2019, and its market share in the global market increased from less than 3% in 1997 to 20% in 2019. The compound annual growth rate of the global plant extract market exceeds 10%, while the compound annual growth rate of extract products in China is as high as 15% or more. At present, there are over 2000 enterprises engaged in the import and export of plant extracts in China, with more than 50 exporting over 10 million US dollars. Taking Chengguang Biotechnology (300138) as an example, its 2020 semi annual report showed that it achieved an export earnings of 82 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 53.7%.

Will play an important role in the big health industry

Nowadays, people's health awareness is gradually increasing, and the demand for "natural" disease prevention products is growing. Experts have pointed out that under the guidance of the "Healthy China 2030" planning outline, the "White Paper on China's Plant Extract Industry" will play a positive role in promoting the use of plant extracts as raw materials for the big health industry in China and promoting high-quality development.

According to the announcement of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, from July 1, 2020, feed production enterprises will stop producing commercial feed containing antibiotics, and plant extracts have become a hot raw material for replacing antibiotic products in feed due to their green and natural characteristics. In addition, plant extracts are important raw materials for food and Tonic Diet, health food, daily chemical products of plant origin, cosmetics of plant origin, breeding inputs (crude extracts of feed plants, feed additives of plant extracts, Chinese veterinary drugs), pesticides of plant origin, medicines of plant origin, etc; Plant extracts can also be made into natural source substances such as plant essential oils, spice seasonings, sweeteners, coloring agents, etc.

Industry experts say that there are many scenarios and fields for the application of plant extracts, and most of them require strong regulation. Among them, the standards for health food raw materials are still blank. The plant extraction industry should strengthen basic research, establish industry standards for plant extracts as soon as possible, and achieve high-quality and sustainable development.