(1) Introduction to the plant extract industry
Plant extract is a product formed by taking plants as raw materials and following physical and chemical extraction and separation procedures to obtain and concentrate one or more active components in plants without changing the structure of their active components. According to different components, plant extracts can be divided into glycosides, acids, polyphenols, polysaccharides, terpenoids, flavonoids, alkaloids and other categories; According to the different properties of the product, it can be divided into vegetable oil, extract, powder, lens and other categories.
Plant extracts are rich in variety, and more than 300 kinds of them have been extracted by industry at present. As a kind of very important intermediate products, they are widely used in pharmaceutical raw materials, health care products, nutritional supplements, food additives, cosmetics and other industries.
Related report: In-depth Analysis and Development Prospect Forecast Report of Plant Extract Industry by Beijing Puhua Youce Information Consulting Co., LTD.
(2) The development history of plant extracts industry
In the early 1980s, developed countries such as Europe and The United States, which had basically completed industrialization, set off the trend of returning to nature. People's attention to and rejection of chemical synthetic products with side effects gradually increased, and the natural and safe plant extracts returned to favor and were highly praised, so the industry should rise. In 1994, the DIETARY Supplement Health and Education Act was enacted in the United States, formally recognizing plant extracts as a food supplement, and the plant extract industry developed rapidly.
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has a long history in China. Since ancient times, medical personnel have attached great importance to the analysis of plant properties and medicinal properties. In the 1970s, some domestic pharmaceutical factories began to use mechanical equipment to extract plant ingredients, but this was only used as a production link of pharmaceutical manufacturing, and did not develop into an independent industry. After the mid-1990s, with the deepening of the degree of opening to the outside world, foreign trade began to flourish and the plant extract industry, which was less restricted by the policy, began to develop.
Since the 21st century, the plant extract industry has entered a golden period of development. On the one hand, the improvement of living standard and the enhancement of health awareness drive people's strong demand for plant extract products; On the other hand, it has benefited from the application of more advanced plant extraction technology (such as enzymatic extraction, ultrasonic extraction, supercritical extraction, microwave extraction, membrane separation technology and so on), which has greatly improved the production efficiency.