Data Analysis and Market Trend Forecast of the Hot Product Stevia

As the development of sugar substitutes, over 100,000 people oer day choose the sugar-free products in the food market. Today, when people pay more and more attention to health care, is there a kind of sweetener that is pure natural, does not generate heat, and tastes good, and can be used in health care products, medicines, food and other fields?

At the end of 2008, as the US FDA approved steviol glycosides， the global sweetener market began to move towards a natural and healthy direction. It is estimated that the current global stevia market capacity is about 10,000 tons. Although China is the country with the largest area of stevia, the production of stevia has always been dominated by foreign companies.

At the end of 2010, the production line of Jiangxi Ganzhou Julong High-tech Industrial Co., Ltd. with an annual output of 5,000 tons of stevioside was put into operation, marking the beginning of China's production capacity for large-tonnage stevia.

Many countries favor stevia

Stevia is a shrub that grows in the Amanbai Mountains on the border between Paraguay and Brazil. It is called "Stevia" because of its super sweet leaves. According to calculations, the sweetness of stevia extracted from stevia leaves is more than 200 times that of ordinary sucrose.

In the 1950s, Japan was the first to invest in stevia research and approved stevia as a sucrose substitute in 1970. By 1981, the sales volume of stevia in Japan had reached 2,000 tons.

The knowledge of stevioside in my country began in the 1970s. After the 1990s, there have been more than a dozen production companies across the country. At that time, the global stevioside research was not comprehensive, so the international and domestic markets were very limited. It wasn't until the Coca-Cola Company used stevia as an added sweetener in Diet Coke in 2007 and declared 24 patents that this market was opened.

Chinese approved Food Additives include 17 sweeteners such as sodium saccharin, sodium cyclamate (sodium cyclamate), and acesulfame potassium (acesulfame potassium). Most of these sweeteners are chemically synthesized, although the country uses them There are strict regulations on the amount, but long-term consumption of foods containing chemical sweeteners still has a potential boosting effect on the formation of obesity and diabetes.

According to the latest survey results of the World Health Organization, China has become the country with the largest number of people suffering from diabetes, with 92 million patients and an even greater number of pre-diabetes 148 million. As early as 2009, the Ministry of Health pointed out that the number of overweight and obesity among children aged 0 to 6 in Chinese cities has reached 8%, and the number of overweight and obesity among adolescents aged 7 to 17 has reached 21%. It is urgent to promote the consumption of natural sugars and add healthy sweeteners.

It is understood that after the world's largest natural sweetener market in 2008-the United States approved stevioside (further refined stevia) as a sweetener, other countries around the world have also given the green light to stevioside. So far, many countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Turkey, etc. have included stevia in the category of food additives and beverage supplements. In 2008, France also granted steviol glycosides a two-year market access observation period after the United States, marking the entry of steviol glycosides into the European market.

In fact, the more important reason why stevioside is sought after by the world is that it has unlimited potential. Not only as food additives and beverage supplements, but also in the fields of health care products and pharmaceuticals, stevia also has broad use value as pharmaceutical excipients.

The person in charge of Beijing Tianan Stevia Sugar Products Co., Ltd. stated that the steviol glycosides produced by the company are specially used for pharmaceutical excipients and have now provided services for more than 200 pharmaceutical factories and health care products companies. He said that as people pay more attention to health and improve the quality standards of health products and medicines, steviol glycosides have great potential in the medicine and health products market.

Strengthen the global market

It is understood that although China is the largest producer of stevioside, the market has always been dominated by Malaysia's Spececo and GLG. The price of RA97 stevioside is more than double that of local Chinese companies. In 2010, China's local stevioside industry began to wake up. In addition to the traditional Shandong and Jiangsu regions playing the role of a single steviol glycoside product supplier, some new emerging steviol glycoside suppliers with plant extract production as the main feature were added.

However, it cannot be ignored that the actual output of many steviol glycoside companies has not reached the production capacity, and companies should pay attention when investing in them. Zeng Yongming, general manager of Zhuhai Stevia Technology Development Co., Ltd., expressed this concern. He estimated that the current domestic and international market capacity is about 10,000 tons, while China's current production capacity has exceeded 10,000 tons. If there is no New Deal to expand the market, China's overcapacity has already formed.

At present, the steviol glycoside approved by the US FDA is RA95, and the one approved by France is steviol glycoside. In the market, there have been two major varieties of ordinary sugar and RA series. According to Sun Jingwen, general manager of Jiangxi Ganzhou Julong High-tech Industrial Co., Ltd., stevia can be divided into ordinary sugars RA40, RA50, and RA60 according to the purified content.

These sugars are not yet available in European and American dining tables. At present, RA95, which can enter the US market, and RA97, which is pending approval in France, are products of ordinary stevia that have undergone enzyme reformation to remove the bitter taste. Some of the original stevia production companies in China still have technical obstacles.

Chinese companies have resource and cost advantages in the stevia industry. The key lies in how to use these advantages to occupy a larger share in the international market. At the same time, it is necessary to vigorously develop the domestic market to let more people realize the importance of natural sweeteners to health.