St.John’s wort is well known as in international market. Hypericin, the functional ingredient of St.John’s wort, has been used for alleviating anxiety and helping sleep for long. China has been the world supplier of St.John’s wort  extract, primarily supplying products of Hypericin 0.3%.

St.John’s wort  extract is mainly produced from wild St.John’s wort , which is mostly seen in the areas of Gansu and Qinling Mountain in China, and also found in Jiangsu, Shandong, Hebei and other provinces. They contain different levels of available ingredients. In 2011, no large yield was achieved from St.John’s wort scapes due to severe drought in the central plain area in China. Price changed drastically in the fresh product yielding period. The price of St.John’s wort  scapes has reached RMB 12-14/kg now, compared with only RMB 4/kg in the previous year. Hypericin 0.3% is priced at RMB 120-140/kg.

There’re many suppliers as St.John’s wort extracts are largely demanded in international market. In recent years, however, fake St.John’s wort  extracts were found in the industry. Commonly, international purchasers need Hypericin 0.3%. But the content of Hypericin is generally defined with the UV analysis method. Some producers add the chemical material melatonin for greater absorbency, which has done great damage to the market order in China’s botanical extract industry. While the price of raw materials has been more than three times of that in the previous year, it is hard for producers to increase price, mainly because there are fakes.   
But now buyers have begun to apply high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to further identify the Hypericin and fake Hypericin in St.John’s wort  extract effectively.

Copyright: www.herbridge.com