The annually-held CPHI has grown into an important platform for leading and active players in herbal industry to show themselves in China. In 2012, CPHI organized all the herbal industry in E3 hall for the first time. Many manufacturers’ booths have their own features such as Xi'an HaoTian Bio-engineering Technology Co., Ltd, Guilin Layn Natural Ingredients Corp, Beijing Gingko group biological technology Co.,Ltd, Shaanxi Jiahe Phytochem Co.,Ltd. The stand area increase and the overall level is improved. There are about 180 companies of herbal extracts in CPHI, calculated by Herbridge Media.

Most exhibitors said the herbal hall received fewer visitors this year, which implies that the purchasing power is insufficient. The sad scene is associated with the global economic downturn. Due to the gray economy in Europe and US, the purchasing volume and frequency significantly decline this year. One insider told herbridge.com, the business of herbal extracts will primarily concentrate in America. The European market is nearly stagnant. Some companies preliminarily signed orders with European players, but the implementation is mostly in Q2 2013.

“In E3 hall, most exhibitors don’t launch new products, and just promote traditional herbal extracts.” according to herbridge.com. The main ingredients in Sichuan province are rutin, quercetin and troxerutin; Zhejiang province, ginkgo extract, green tea extract and apple extract; Inner Mongolia and Qinghai province, seabuckthorn extracts and seabuckthorn seed oil; Shanxi province, bilberry extracts, icarrin, Danshen extracts and curcumin. “In herbal extract industry, the cost and risk are too high for China’s manufacturers to develop a new ingredient. Most of them focus on bulk commodity. Therefore, today’s strategic focus is optimizing equipment and management, emphasizing on details and improving quality.” says Sun Xuemei, market director of Ningbo Lihwa Pharmaceutical Co.,Ltd. The company, to some extent, represents some manufacturers to search for breakthroughs in China.

LiuShirong, marketing manager of Lonza, has worked for 15 years in natural and nutritional industry. He told herbridg.com, “The natural and healthy field is really to be expected across the global nutritional market.” He is very optimistic with natural ingredients with herbal extracts at the core. Some chemical giants entered into the natural and nutritional ingredients industry through merger and acquisition. For example, BASF purchased Deep Sea Fish Oil, DSM acquired ONC. 

 “Overall, this year’s CPHI don’t bring new vigor and vitality into the market in terms of new products. Compared to the last two exhibitions, visitors decrease, European and American customers decline this year. There are two reasons. The herbal extract market hasn’t recovered from the crisis. IFT Food Expo was held concurrently, attracting some foreign customers (especially American) and domestic companies.” said Zhang Chengwei from HaoTian Bio-engineering Technology.

Zhang added, “We may recover the market through innovation, applications’ enlargement and further development of products.”

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