Release time:

2024-05-24

The fragrance and flavoring industry in China faces numerous challenges and difficulties in its development, and urgently needs government guidance, policy support, and social empowerment. It also greatly desires information sharing for common development and growth. This was stated recently by Qi Lian, chairman of the China Forestry Industry Association's Fragrance and Flavoring Sub-association, at the first World Forestry Congress 2023 Fragrance and Flavoring Industry Development Forum and the first annual meeting of the Fragrance and Flavoring Sub-association, held in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. This forum, themed "Beautiful China, Healthy China, Fragrant China," aimed to promote exchange and cooperation in the fragrance and flavoring industry. More than 400 people attended the meeting, including officials from the State Forestry and Grassland Administration and various levels of local governments in Guangxi, industry experts and scholars, and business representatives, to discuss the development path of the fragrance and flavoring industry. Jin Min, head of the leadership group for the change of the China Economic Forestry Association, said that the fragrance and flavoring industry is an important resource-based industry, a high-tech industry, and a sunrise industry. Since ancient times, spices have been an important part of China's Silk Road trade. In recent years, the fragrance and flavoring industry has become an important bridge and major export-oriented industry for cultural exchange, trade, and economic cooperation between China and countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative. It is a vivid example of transforming "green mountains and clear waters" into "mountains of gold and silver," and a typical demonstration of ecological industrialization and industrial ecologization. It is understood that the global international fragrance market is booming, with an average annual growth rate far exceeding the global average economic growth rate. The output value increased from 17.2 billion yuan in 2015 to 250.7 billion yuan in 2022. China is the largest producer of natural fragrances, with a complete range of natural fragrance plant varieties and abundant resources, including more than 400 types of fragrance plants. Currently, more than 120 types of natural fragrances are produced. China has many unique varieties such as cassia and star anise, and natural fragrance varieties with unique advantages globally. Approximately 1/3 of fragrance and flavoring products are exported annually, with about 2/3 of fragrance products exported. The export volume of vanillin, linalool, and maltol accounts for about 50% of the global supply. The market size of the national fragrance and flavoring industry has reached 700 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 1/3 of the world's industry output value, and maintains a high-speed development momentum with broad prospects. Zhou Hongsheng, head of the leadership group for the change of the China Forestry Industry Association, said that the fragrance and flavoring industry is the most effective path to realize "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" and the most effective path to realize the value of forest ecological products. Promoting the development of the fragrance and flavoring industry can fully enhance the attractiveness of forest resource assets to social capital and is one of the most effective means of ecological utilization and protection. At the same time, the development of the fragrance and flavoring industry is of great significance to promoting common prosperity for farmers and rural areas, contributing to the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, and promoting harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. However, "the development of China's fragrance and flavoring industry is still relatively primary, with many industry pain points." Yang Chao, chairman of the China Green Carbon Sink Foundation and former chief economist of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, said that there is no unified management department, no unified quality standards, lack of scale, and no standardized trading platform, among other issues. Participants generally believed that China's fragrance and flavoring industry still faces problems such as insufficient industry support, backward extraction methods, lack of core competitiveness and innovation ability, lagging selection and promotion of new varieties, low industrial concentration, and serious homogeneity. At the same time, China's fragrance and flavoring industry is in a young and rapidly growing stage. The next few years will be a period of significant improvement in the technical level, major adjustments in capital structure, and major changes in business concepts in China's fragrance and flavoring industry. Lai Ming, a member of the Standing Committee of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Jiu San Society, proposed in a speech titled "Analysis of the Development Trends of the International and Domestic Fragrance and Flavoring Industry": strengthen overall planning and macro-guidance, formulate a national special plan for the fragrance and flavoring industry, increase industry support, develop fragrance and flavoring into a leading industry, and create a Chinese-characteristic fragrance and flavoring industry cluster; promote the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, increase investment in the exploration, selection, and promotion of plant varieties, combine with Chinese traditional culture for image building, and promote industrial upgrading; build a deeply integrated service system, increase credit support for the fragrance and flavoring industry, build a high-end R&D talent team, improve the technical level of the fragrance and flavoring industry, and focus on solving "stuck neck" problems; give full play to the strength of universities and research institutes, and establish a fragrance and flavoring industry research institute; strengthen market system construction, cultivate leading enterprises, create well-known brands, and promote high-quality development of China's fragrance and flavoring industry. Sun Baoguo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chairman of the Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology, pointed out in his keynote speech that innovation is the core competitiveness of the fragrance and flavoring industry. He proposed four points of emphasis: attach importance to the selection and breeding of natural fragrance plants, attach importance to the deep processing and comprehensive utilization of natural fragrances, attach importance to the artificial synthesis of bulk fragrances, and attach importance to the production and use permits for food fragrances. The forum also held a ceremony for the establishment of the ASEAN Fragrance and Flavoring Trading Platform, a ceremony for the establishment of the Fragrance and Flavoring Industry Research Institute, and a launch ceremony for the documentary "Smelling the Fragrance of China." Thirteen participating companies read out the "Proposal for Promoting the High-Quality Development of China's Fragrance and Flavoring Industry." China Quality News