In recent years, the scale of plant extract industry has ushered in rapid growth, especially in Europe and the United States and other developed countries and regions, the demand for plant extract has been growing steadily, which has stimulated the development of the industry. According to the analysis of markets and markets, in 2019, the global market value of plant extracts is about US $23.7 billion, and it is expected to reach US $59.4 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 16.5%.

China is rich in plant resources, in which more than 300 kinds of plant extracts can be used. As a major exporter of plant extracts in the world, China's export volume of plant extracts has been rising in recent years, reaching a record high of US $2.368 billion in 2018, with a year-on-year growth of 17.79%. According to customs statistics, in 2019, China's exports of traditional Chinese medicine products were 40.2, with a year-on-year growth of 2.8%. Among them, the largest proportion of plant extracts was US $2.37 billion, with a year-on-year growth of only 0.2%; the export volume was 86900 tons, with a year-on-year growth of 5.68%; the export price was US $27.3/kg, with a year-on-year decline of 5.19%.

With the increasing concern for food and drug safety, a large number of edible safe and nutritious plant extracts have been used as raw materials to produce nutritious food and health food in various ways. The strong market demand has driven the rapid development of the industry, but there are still many problems to be solved.

The first is the limitation of laws and regulations in different countries. For example, in North America, dietary supplements are the main products; in Europe, health products and plant drugs are the main products; in China, traditional Chinese medicine and food additives are the main products. The quality standard of plant extracts is vague, and the difference of uses directly affects the applicability of raw materials. Only the products that meet the requirements can enter the market, and there are many restrictions.

Secondly, the distribution of industrial processing is uneven. Due to the limitation of technical conditions, crude extracts are mainly used in China, and the deep development is limited by technology and regulations, so the development is not ideal and lacks competitiveness in the world.

Third, the supporting system is not perfect. As a new industry in China, a considerable part of the plant extracts have no corresponding production standards and norms, lack of effective supervision, and the product quality is uneven. There is still a long way to go on the road of industrial norms.

Taking curcumin as an example, curcumin is a hot functional food raw material. It has developed rapidly in the North American market, and has been used in many fields, such as dietary supplements, beverages, cosmetics, etc. in China, it is mainly used in food colorants. Although its functional food has also been listed, it takes a long time to register and approve, and the development cost of enterprises is high. Recently, in the opinion draft of supplementary list of health food excipients, turmeric powder is proposed to be listed as health food excipients. Although the maximum dosage is still set, it can promote the application of turmeric powder.

At present, the proportion of medical and health products is increasing year by year. The gradual maturity of China's plant extract industry will undoubtedly be an important progress for the global plant extract industry.