Driven
by low production costs and significant demand growth expectations, China’s
functional oligosaccharide industry has surged production in recent years, but
demand didn’t keep pace. Hence, most producers are running on a very low
production rate and wait for higher consumer awareness of the healthy sugar
replacement.
Capacity and Output of Trehalose in China
Source: CCM
The
People’s Republic of China has grown production steadily of its functional
oligosaccharide commodities in the last decades and especially in the recent
three years. The investment into the healthy sweeteners started in the 1990s
and still holds on, slowly getting more attention from consumers. After the
USA, Europe and Japan, China is now playing a major role in the global
Oligosaccharide supply chain.
However,
contradicting to the surging production in recent years by several
manufacturers, especially major players like Baolingbao Biology, Shandong
Longlive, and New Francisco, the demand did not grow in line, which led to a
severe overcapacity in China’s market.
The
most important functional oligosaccharide for China’s
market are isomalto-oligosaccharide, fructo-oligosaccharide,
soybean
oligosaccharide, galacto-oligosaccharide, xylo-oligosaccharide, and
trehalose. These all have experienced different development in China in recent years,
with changing growth in demand and production, but all of them are running way
under the production capacity. In some extremes, oligosaccharide products are
facing such a sluggish demand that the industry witnessed production rates
under 13% of the possible capacity. All in all, the production was much lower
than the capacity for all oligosaccharide products in recent years.
Functional
oligosaccharide are replacing sucrose in many downstream
applications, since they are attributed to have very beneficial effects on the
human health, low calorie, and still show significant sweetener abilities.
Especially the increasing consumption of healthy products in China’s growing
middle class has pushed the demand for functional oligosaccharide as a
replacement for traditional starch sugars.
As
excellent dietary fibres or prebiotics, the demands on oligosaccharide from
infant formula, functional beverage, yoghurt, slimming products are increasing
incredibly in China, giving hope to manufacturers that the awareness is finally
growing faster and demand will follow soon.
In
the international competition, Chinese manufacturers own the advantages as
enormous raw material supply, for example from non-genetic modified corn, lower
labour cost, and government support on industrial and tax policies.
Capacity and Output of isomalto-olisaccharide in China
Source: CCM
About
functional oligosaccharide
Functional
oligosaccharide are enjoying growing demand worldwide as prebiotic
food ingredients used in various applications. The major prebiotic
oligosaccharides on global markets are inulin, fructo-oligosaccharides,
and galacto-oligosaccharides.
The
functional oligosaccharides can be processed from various origins, including
sources like viruses, bacteria, plants and fungi. Recently these food
ingredients have been seen a wider usage scope, ranging from pharmacological
supplements, food ingredients, and regulation of glucose control for diabetic
patients to reducing serum lipid levels in hyperlipidemic and other some acute
and chronic diseases.
Oligosaccharide
category is a rising star in food sweetener products family due to its health
functions. As novel sweeteners, oligosaccharides are used in a variety of
end-use products as food, drink, dietary supplement, pharmaceutical and animal
feeds. Particularly in foods, it’s can be added as an alternative sweetener of
sugar.
About this article
The
information of this article comes from the market research report Production
of Functional Oligosaccharides in China, 2014-2016 by Chinese market
intelligence firm CCM. Click on the link to see the report description.
CCM
is China’s leading market intelligence firm in the fields of Food
ingredients, Agriculture, and Chemicals. For more information on our research
scope, please contact our team at econtact@cnchemicals.com.