Amino Acid Functional Foods Have a Promising Future

　　Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and one of the most basic substances that make up the human body. As a raw material product, amino acids have been developed for more than half a century. In recent years, the amino acid market has grown steadily, with dietary supplements and health foods made from amino acids taking the markets of developed countries and regions such as Europe, the US and Japan by storm. Data show that in 2019, the market size of amino acids is second only to lactobacilli and bifidobacteria in the Japanese health food end market, reaching 262 billion yen. in 2020, the world market size of amino acids reaches 9.8 million tons, and the CAGR is expected to be about 5% from 2021 to 2026, and is expected to reach 13.1 million tons by 2026. China is the largest exporter of amino acids, producing and manufacturing a wide range of amino acid products such as citrulline, taurine and inositol, which occupy a large share of the global market.

China's annual amino acid production exceeds one million tonnes

　　Several countries around the world began to engage in the industrial production of amino acids half a century ago. The Japanese company Ajinomoto obtained the first industrially produced single product of amino acids, glutamic acid (glutamic acid), through experiments in the 1940s. Since then, scientists have used protein hydrolysis to hydrolyse raw materials such as feathers, human hair and pig blood into amino acids, but these are mostly "mixed amino acids", which are very difficult to break down.

　　The development of the amino acid industry was accelerated by the development of industrial microbial fermentation in the 1960s. Since then, a variety of commonly used amino acid species such as glutamic acid, lysine, threonine and phenylalanine can be produced by microbial fermentation, with a significant reduction in cost and a significant increase in production. By the end of the 1990s, the total global production of amino acids had exceeded 2 million tonnes, with dozens of varieties. From now on, the amino acid industry has seen a growing number of branded companies, mainly including Ajinomoto Corporation, AMINO GmbH, ADM, Cargill, Nippon Kyowa Fermentation, Higei Group, Elephant Corporation, Evonik Industries Group, Fufeng Group Limited, Meihua Group, Ajinomoto International, Dacheng Biochemistry and Kemin Industries.

　　The global monosodium glutamate (MSG) market size reached 3.21 million tonnes in 2017, with China accounting for 1.64 million tonnes, or over 50%. China is the largest exporter of amino acids and can produce and manufacture a wide range of amino acids, with the main types containing glutamic acid, lysine, threonine, methionine and glutamic acid. The market share of some non-mainstream amino acids with amino acid-like effects is high, holding over 50% of citrulline, over 80% of taurine, over 70% of inositol and over 30% of L-carnitine.