As seen from the table above, dendrobium officinale and panax notoginseng are the ones that applied the most. Except the powder of panax notoginseng flower that remains without result for the time being, the rest of the species of panax notoginseng have been terminated and considered substantially equivalent to the ordinary food due to the long history of consumption in Yunnan and other places in China.

Dendrobium, hard to be neglected, covers a complete range of applications including materials from dendrobium officinale to dendrobium devonianum Paxt, from flowers to leaves, from protocorms to cultures, none of which is approved.

Bright prospects lie ahead, but hurdles remain

In spite of successful applications of ginseng, cordyceps militaris and other materials that have been approved as new food raw materials, an encouragement to the applicants under the bright prospects of the health industry, the way for the TCM materials to becoming new food raw materials still has twists and turns.

Safety, the top priority

The Administrative Measures for the Safety Review of New Food Raw Materials specifies that the new food raw materials should have the characteristics of food raw materials and conform to nutritional requirements, which are non-toxic, harmless, and do not have any form of harm whether acute, sub-acute, or chronic or have other potential hazards to human health.

New food raw materials

With the characteristics of food raw materials

Conforming to current nutritional requirements

Non-toxic and harmless

Without any potential hazards to human health

Many TCM materials have a long history of utilization but lack evidence for safety. A large number of test and research supports are required, all of which are essential. But there is one thing I don't understand. The TCM materials need to prove their safety without toxicity and a long history of local consumption through certificates issued by health departments. Though saving experiments, it is not in line with the definition of new food raw materials — "new food raw materials refer to the materials that are not traditionally consumed in China" — making TCM materials be seen as ordinary foods. How to find a balance between them leaves the applicants’ enterprises in a difficult situation.

Resources need to be protected more than utilized

TCM materials also run into a big resource problem when applying for the new food raw materials. The natural products of the raw materials such as cistanche, penthorum chinense pursh and anoectochilus formosanus are in shortage for medical use, not to mention support for the food sector. Therefore, some of these raw materials take their cultivated products as the applicants. Ginseng, cordyceps militaris, tissue cultures of Saussurea involucrata, which have been approved as the new food raw materials, are all the products of artificial cultivation or modern biotechnology. It’s a protection of resources, as well as an example of the further development of the TCM materials.

Whether it is new food raw material waiting for good results, or the TCM material to be applied for the new food raw material, safety issues top the list of considerations, while second place goes to the use and protection of resources. This is how TCM materials go further and smoother on the road to new food raw materials.