In recent years, the global plant extracts market has developed vigorously, and China has become the world’s first supplier of plant extracts with its rich material resources. Antion introduced the definition, classification and current domestic regulation status of plant extracts, and interpreted the current status of plant extracts industry in more details, so as to facilitate enterprises to understand and refer to.
1.Definitions and classification of plant extracts
The definitions of plant extracts in the current domestic standards and drafts are much the same, combined with the definitions in the Plant Extracts—Vocabulary (Draft for Comments), the Technical Specification for Production Process of Plant Extracts (Draft for Comments), GB/T 31326-2014 Botanical Beverages, etc. plant extracts can be summarized as follows: products that use the whole or a part of a plant as raw material, undergoes physical or chemical extraction and/or separation processes to selectively obtain and concentrate one or more components from the plant, without altering the structural characteristics of the original plant components.
There are many kinds of plant extracts, and their classification methods are also various. According to the components, they can be divided into polyphenols (flavonoids, glycosides), terpenoids (saponins), polysaccharides, alkaloids, sterols, etc.; According to the use, they can be divided into natural coloring products, traditional Chinese medicine extract products, extract products, concentrated products, etc.; According to the product properties, they can be divided into vegetable oils, soaking pastes, powders, crystals, etc.
2. Application of plant extracts
Plant extracts can be used as food additives, ordinary food raw materials, health food functional raw materials, pharmaceutical raw materials, cosmetic raw materials, pesticide raw materials, feed and feed additive raw materials.
When plant extracts are used as food additives, they can be divided into antioxidants, colorants, sweeteners, food flavoring substances, etc., according to their different functions in foods. The approved use of the current GB 2760-2024 and its supplemental announcements is summarized in the following table:
After inquiring the "Acceptance of New Varieties of Food Additives" information published by the National Health Commission, it is learned that some plant extracts are applying for new varieties of food additives, such as soap bark extract, theaflavin and so on.
Plant extracts are often used as functional raw materials in health food, there is no list of functional raw materials for health food, but there are many health food on the market with plant extracts as the main raw materials in the sale, such as grape seed extract. With "grape seed extract" as the search term, search the "Special Food Information Query Platform", after summary, it was found that about 360 products with grape seed extract as the main raw material in the approved registered health food, and the main function is "antioxidant" and so on.
In addition, according to the 2020 version of the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China, some plant extracts can also be used as pharmaceutical raw materials, including hawthorn leaf extract, forsythia extract and poppy fruit extract.
3.Regulation of domestic plant extracts
In China, plant extracts should have implementation standards no matter what kind of food ingredients they are. At present, there is no national standard, industry standard, local standard and other implementation standards for plant extracts in China. Approved and unapproved plant extracts are regulated in the following manners:
1) For approved plant extracts: Approved plant extracts should be produced and used in accordance with the corresponding product standards, including food safety standards and approval announcements. These current standards are divided into two categories: one is a general implementation standard for some similar products. For example, plant extracts without separate quality specifications approved for use as food flavoring substances in GB 2760 are implemented GB 29938-2020 National Food Safety Standard General Standard for Food Flavoring Substances; The other is the product implementation standard for a single plant extract. For example, Mustard extract, yellow is implemented GB 1886.269-2016 National Food Safety Standard Food Additive Mustard Extract, Yellow, Dunaliella Salina extract is implemented Announcement No. 18 of 2009 by the original Ministry of Health.
In addition to food safety standards and approval announcements, some groups have set up group standards for plant extracts, such as the China Chamber of Medicines & Health Products Importers and Exporters issued a series of standards for plant extracts.
2) Unapproved plant extracts: unapproved plant extracts should be applied as novel food ingredients or new varieties of food additives according to their properties and the relevant regulation requirements of the application of "three new" food, and can be used after approval. When used as a functional raw material for health food, the corresponding application should be made, and it can be used for health food after approval.
4. Conclusion
In recent years, with the global "natural food" boom, the plant extract industry has developed rapidly, showing a strong growth momentum in the global sales market. There are many kinds of plant resources in China, but because China has not yet established a complete basic standard system of plant extracts, the lack of basic quality control, testing norms and other standards, and new products need to be explored and confirmed product standards, and obtain permission through the "three new" application way, taking a relatively long time, these factors lead to the relatively slow development of plant extracts industry. However, as China gradually improves the basic standard system of plant extracts, plant extracts, as important food ingredients, are believed that its market development prospects will become more optimistic.
Source: Antion
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