The popularity of plant extracts is inevitable. According to multiple industry media reports, the global market size of plant extracts exceeded 50 billion US dollars in 2024, with China, as a major producer, contributing over 30% of the share. In the fields of functional foods, cosmetics, health products, etc., ingredients such as resveratrol, curcumin, and grape seed extract frequently appear in the product ingredient list. Behind this craze lies consumers' pursuit of the "natural" and "green" concepts, as well as enterprises' urgent need to seek product differentiation. But the question also arises: Are these extracts, which are labeled as "natural", really as safe and harmless as advertised?

In fact, the controversy over the safety of plant extracts has a long history. Many industry experts point out that natural does not equal safe. Plants may accumulate heavy metals, pesticide residues and other pollutants during their growth process, and improper extraction techniques may also introduce new risk substances. What is even more alarming is that some enterprises, in pursuit of efficacy, blindly increase the concentration of extracts, resulting in potential safety hazards in the final products. The incident of a well-known brand's plant essence drink being taken off the shelves at the end of 2024 is a concentrated manifestation of this issue. This product was investigated by the regulatory authorities due to consumer complaints of adverse reactions. Eventually, tests revealed that the content of one of its active ingredients far exceeded the safety limit.
Against this backdrop, the AMES test (bacterial reverse mutation test), as the internationally recognized gold standard for mutagenicity detection, has become increasingly important. This detection method, developed by American scientist Bruce Ames in 1975, can rapidly and accurately assess the potential ability of substances to cause gene mutations. In the field of food safety, a qualified AMES test report is often the first line of defense to allay market concerns. Take a certain grape seed extract that has recently drawn attention as an example. The production enterprise successfully dispelled the doubts about its carcinogenic risk on social media by releasing a complete negative AMES report, and its sales did not decline but increased instead.
However, the current detection situation in the plant extract industry is not optimistic. Surveys show that among nearly a thousand related products sold on e-commerce platforms, less than 15% have provided third-party test reports, and those containing AMES test data are even rarest. There are multiple reasons for this situation: On the one hand, complete toxicological testing is costly, and the cost of a full safety assessment for a single raw material may reach hundreds of thousands of yuan; On the other hand, some enterprises have a mentality of taking chances, believing that as long as they are not randomly inspected, they can get away with it. What is even more alarming is that some institutions' test reports are suspected of being "tailor-made", aiming to obtain ideal results by adjusting experimental conditions. Such behavior seriously damages the industry's reputation.
To build consumers' long-term trust in plant extracts, enterprises must change their mindset and bring safety verification forward. The practices of Japanese enterprises are worth learning from: Before launching new raw materials, they conduct a comprehensive assessment including acute toxicity tests, sub-chronic toxicity tests, and AMES tests, and make all the data public. This seemingly cost-increasing practice actually builds competitive barriers for enterprises. A case of a large domestic pharmaceutical company's transformation into a functional food company proves this point. The company invested tens of millions of yuan to conduct a comprehensive safety evaluation of its main plant ingredients. As a result, the premium pricing ability of its products far exceeded that of its peers, and the repurchase rate increased by more than 40%.
Regulatory authorities are also taking active actions. In June 2025, the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China released the "Regulations on the Declaration and Review of Plant Extracts for Food Use (Draft for Comment)", for the first time explicitly requiring that plant extracts in new food ingredients must submit mutagenic test data. This policy trend indicates that in the future, plant extracts without scientific and safety endorsements will find it difficult to enter the market. Meanwhile, the National Institutes for Food and Drug Control is establishing a plant extract safety database, aiming to provide a unified risk assessment standard for the industry.
For consumers, to identify the safety of plant extract products, several key points need to be grasped: First, check whether the product indicates the specific name and content of the extract. Vague labels such as "compound plant essence" often hide risks. Secondly, give priority to brands that publish third-party test reports, especially those products that include AMES test results; Finally, be vigilant against excessive efficacy promotion. Any plant extract that claims to "cure all diseases" is worthy of suspicion. Some experts suggest that consumers can log in to the website of the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment to check the list of approved new food ingredients as a reference for purchase.
Looking ahead, the healthy development of the plant extract market cannot be achieved without the joint efforts of the entire industrial chain. A full-process quality control system from planting to processing needs to be established at the raw material end. Production enterprises should abandon the mentality of seeking quick success and instant benefits and do a solid job in safety assessment. Regulatory authorities need to accelerate the improvement of the standard system and increase the punishment for false advertising. Only through the collaboration of multiple parties can we prevent plant extracts from repeating the "short-lived" mistakes of some popular raw materials and truly achieve the transformation from traffic bestsellers to long-lasting popular products.

In this era of information transparency, any security concerns may be magnified infinitely. For practitioners in the plant extract industry, it is better to build a moat with scientific data from the very beginning than to be exhausted in dealing with the crisis after it breaks out. After all, once consumers' trust is lost, no matter how flowery the marketing rhetoric is, it is hard to regain it. When the new regulations are officially implemented and consumers' awareness keeps improving, those enterprises that still ignore safety will eventually be eliminated by the market. The story of plant extracts has just begun, and safety will always be the most crucial chapter in it.