Is the market for medicinal food opportunities in a younger demographic?

The consumer market has long demonstrated its enthusiasm for medicinal and food-sourced substances. Especially young people’s awareness of health care has increased, and they are not satisfied with the pharmaceutical form and taste of health food; while traditional tonic products are troublesome to consume, so snacks such as soft candies, health teas, ready-to-eat/ready-to-drink and other functional food products with added medicinal and food-similar ingredients have continued to emerge. Medicinal food products have entered a period of rapid growth.

As can be seen from the 2022 Double 11 battlefield performance, compared with other categories that are quiet or not as good as before, nutrition and health products are still showing a great trend.

Bird’s nest, black sesame, ginseng, wolfberry and other categories in the nourishment category are still very popular. According to the Magic Mirror market report analysis, Taobao Tmall medicinal food market scale in recent years more than 20 billion yuan, the market size of 22.3% year-on-year growth. Whether it is a startup company, or health food, pharmaceutical and traditional food and beverage companies, they all focus on medicinal food, and the capital market and the media have also paid great attention to medicinal food products.
In terms of regulations, at the beginning of 2020, the Health Commission issued an announcement to add nine kinds of medicinal food with the same source, such as ginseng, and carry out pilot work in various places. With the nine kinds of medicinal food with the pilot work is coming to an end, it is expected that in the future there will be other substances expansion into the medicinal food with the catalog. The support of the expansion of regulations, the enthusiasm of the consumer market, have given China’s medicinal food industry a huge space for development.
Although China’s current medicinal food products are in a state of growth, but due to the low threshold of entry, and the phenomenon of product homogenization is also more serious. The potential of many raw materials has not been developed, such as ginger, licorice, ginseng, wicker bark, etc., which are better developed and applied abroad, the value excavation in China is not comprehensive, and the added value of the industrial chain is also relatively low. However, with the rise of ginseng and ganoderma lucidum in the international market, the development of food and beverage based on these ingredients may set off a new wave of explosive products in China. Food and Medicine – Hot Ingredients
As the awareness of health continues to rise globally, “health maintenance” has long been synonymous with middle-aged and elderly people, and has become a common attribute across all types of people.

The “trend” of health care has blown to young people, and more and more young people are joining the health care army.
The traditional Chinese medicine culture of medicine and food concept has received unprecedented attention.
In the demand and policy driven by the two-wheel drive, medicinal food with health products ushered in the “post epidemic era”, the market shows a blue ocean. So, what are the hot ingredients in functional food/health food developed on the basis of the same source of food and medicine? And what are the potential raw materials worthy of attention in the future?

The hot varieties in the medicinal food market are mainly black sesame, honey, sea buckthorn, ginseng, saffron, Colla Corii Asini and wolfberry. These raw materials, whether in the form of herbal drinks or processed into health pills, health creams, health teas, etc., are all varieties with high market recognition. In addition to these hot ingredients, Phytobridge has also compiled application analyses of more than a dozen potential ingredients such as Ganoderma lucidum, Astragalus membranaceus, Turmeric, Wicker, Kombucha, Luo Han Guo, Flos Carthamus tinctorius, Gaultheria, Cinnamon, and Eugenol.

In addition to the current hot spots and potential ingredients, there are many new food ingredients that are also related to medicinal food.
This is because the regulations on the use of medicinal food as food production, there is such a provision: physical processing according to traditional production processes or dietary habits, excluding chemical extraction methods. This limits to a large extent the food identity application of the active ingredients of medicinal foodstuffs.
Therefore, many medicinal food extracts will be declared as new food ingredients, thus entering into application in more food areas. This also provides new ideas for product development. Food and Medicine – Domestic Market

According to Euromonitor’s data forecast in 2022, China’s functional food market size will exceed 600 billion yuan, and according to the “Generation Z Nutrition Consumption Trend Report”, young people have become the main force of the current health consumption, in which the proportion of young consumers aged 18-35 years old accounted for as much as 83.7%, and the medicinal food + tonic category has become the preferred choice of consumption for the new generation. Young people hope to make health improvements through dietary regimen. Among them, enhancing immunity, improving sleep quality, and improving memory and concentration are the top three demands of young people.

Currently, in China’s medicinal food market, the main product types are nourishing pills, nourishing creams, medicinal nourishing soups, nourishing powders, nourishing and nutritious candies and nourishing teas. This report focuses on the analysis of products such as nourishing pills, nourishing creams and nourishing teas.
Young people’s health craze brings opportunities for new consumer brands to enter the nutrition and health industry market. Food and Medicine – Industry Trends
Pharmaceutical industry is now in a rapid development stage in China, with a clear advantage of the leading enterprises have not yet formed, combined with the relevant national policies and our analysis of the industry, the market and so on, the future development trend of the pharmaceutical industry is as follows:

1, policy direction. Pharmaceutical directory will continue to expand, the future of more medicinal food substances or can enter the health food record directory. These favorable policies will directly promote the research and development of food and medicine products, innovation, rich food and medicine product categories, but also will further promote the food and medicine market share continues to rise, the overall development of the industry is optimistic. And medicinal food with source may get more policy support, market development will also accelerate the pace.
2, the whole industry chain innovation. In addition to the development of medicinal food with the development of heritage, it is more important to innovation. From the upstream breeding to cultivation, from the composition of the research to the establishment of standards, from the efficacy of the evaluation to the market application, each link has the dimension of innovation, but also the formation of product differentiation is an important path. At present, no matter in the upstream, midstream already have enterprises are carrying out multi-dimensional innovation, including breeding technology, provide process innovation, etc., to meet the needs of consumers for healthy and nutritious food supplement. However, it is worth mentioning that in the scientific endorsement of the function of medicinal food substances, efficacy verification, but also need to enterprises, domestic universities and research institutions to do more work.
3, occupy a larger market. Compared with the foreign food and medicine market, China’s food and medicine market is still in the early stages of development, with a broad space for development. With the expansion of the consumer population, the enhancement of consumer spending power and the popularization of health awareness, coupled with the continuous launch of medicinal food products, based on the emergence of new brands of medicinal food, based on the development of medicinal food food or food can occupy a larger share of the functional food market, but also has the opportunity to breed traditional Chinese culture, medical theory, and modern technology means to meet the future needs of the people of the country nourishment and wellness of the TOP! Brand.
Daily/light health care is gradually becoming the hard demand of young people, and there is still huge room for development of the usage scenarios. New consumer brands with the same origin as medicine and food should emphasize inheritance and innovation. Not only to inherit the roots of traditional Chinese medicine, but also to combine with modern technology, data-based innovation, launch more universal, more popular products, to create a “medicine and food +” product system.