Plant extracts mainly refer to substances extracted or processed from plants (either the entire plant or a certain part of it) using appropriate solvents or methods. They can be used in the pharmaceutical industry, food industry, daily chemical industry and other industries, covering multiple categories such as capsanthin, capsaicin, lutein, silymarin, and grape seed extract. There is a conceptual intersection between plant extracts and Chinese herbal extracts. The raw materials of plant extracts in China mainly come from Chinese herbal medicines. Therefore, domestic plant extracts can also be called traditional Chinese medicine extracts to some extent and are generally included in the category of traditional Chinese medicine products in China's export trade statistics.

Plant extracts can be classified into three categories based on the content of their active ingredients: active monomer extracts, standard extracts, and ratio extracts. They are classified by components into glycosides, acids, polyphenols, polysaccharides, terpenoids, flavonoids, alkaloids, etc. According to the product form, it can be classified into vegetable oil, extract, powder, crystal, etc. According to their uses, they can be further classified into natural pigment products, traditional Chinese medicine extract products, extract products and concentrated products.

The scale of plant extracts in China has been continuously expanding and growing. It is expected that the market size will exceed 60 billion yuan by 2025

The development of the plant extract industry in China started relatively late, only beginning in the 1970s, and in its early stage, it was merely a part of the drug production process. It was not until the 1990s, with the rise of foreign trade, that China truly entered the initial stage of the plant extraction industry and gradually began to use more efficient extraction methods such as enzymatic extraction, ultrasonic extraction, supercritical extraction and membrane separation technology. Then, in the 21st century, as plant extraction technology entered the mature stage of industrialization and was widely adopted by the market, China's plant extract market entered a golden development period and its scale continued to grow. Data shows that the market size of plant extracts in China reached nearly 45 billion yuan in 2023, and it is expected to exceed 60 billion yuan by 2025.

Second, domestic enterprises have become increasingly prominent in the international arena, and their foreign trade exports have maintained a relatively high growth rate for ten consecutive years

After years of development, China's plant extract industry has continued to grow and expand. Up to now, the position and role of domestic enterprises in conducting international trade and division of labor and cooperation have become increasingly prominent, and foreign trade exports have maintained a relatively high growth rate for ten consecutive years. Plant extracts, as the main raw material products in the category of China's traditional Chinese medicine imports and exports, account for 50% of the foreign trade of traditional Chinese medicine. From the perspective of exports alone, plant extracts account for 60%. In 2023, China's export volume was 3.32 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 6%. Its global market share exceeded 20%, ranking first in the world. The import volume was only 680 million US dollars, a year-on-year decline of 12%. It can be seen that at present, plant extracts in our country are mainly used for export, and the import and export markets show a trade surplus.

Third, the product has a wide range of applications and a broad development prospect in the future

According to the "Research Report on the Development Trend and Future Prospect Forecast of China's Plant Extract Industry (2024-2031)" released by Guanyan Report Network, the application fields of plant extracts cover multiple areas such as medicine, health food, dietary supplements, and cosmetics, demonstrating good application extensibility and a large market space. Moreover, with the advancement of technology and the improvement of production processes, new varieties of extracts are constantly emerging, and the new application scenarios of known extracts are also continuously extended. As a result, the market demand space for plant extracts will also expand accordingly. It can be seen from this that as the application fields of plant extracts continue to expand and the downstream market keeps developing, it will bring about a broad market demand.