Eye health food: "ice and fire" in domestic and foreign markets

"Eyes like purple!" This is a TV ad for a drink that she is endorsing Therefore, the domestic audience began to know that the purple fruit rich in anthocyanins is good for the eyes Food, beverage and medicine which are good for eyes have a large market in China, but eye health food which has the function of protecting eyes has not formed a good market Different from the development of Chinese market, eye health food is very popular in foreign countries At present, thousands of varieties have been sold well in foreign markets such as Europe, America, Japan and so on In the face of such business opportunities, are domestic manufacturers ready? The so-called "eye health food" is a new generation of functional food developed and produced by western countries in the 1990s As the name implies, eye health food refers to the special functional food with the function of protecting eyes and preventing eye diseases For the computer family, the most common symptom is dry eye For the elderly, macular degeneration, cataract, glaucoma and other eye diseases are more common Medical research shows that the above eye diseases are all eye diseases with long onset time, and the onset time can be as long as several years or even decades And once the disease occurs, it is difficult to use drugs for treatment If people can often eat some good food for their eyes, it can not only delay the occurrence of eye diseases, but also relieve the existing symptoms Since entering the 21st century, the eye health food market in Europe, America, Japan and other countries has achieved unprecedented rapid development However, in China, the eye health food market is developing slowly Therefore, the eye health food market in China and abroad presents the scene of "ice and fire" For example, according to foreign media reports, in 2006, the sales of eye health food in the United States accounted for 75% of the total sales of the functional food market in the country, and the sales of eye health food in Japan accounted for about 49% of the total sales of the health food market in the country At present, eye health food sold in European and American market can be divided into two categories: one is vitamin eye health food, which is represented by VC + ve capsule, VC + β - carotene capsule, VA capsule, etc.; the other is a new eye health food with blueberry as the main berry plant extract, which emerged in the 1990s Blueberry is the first product with the earliest development and application and the largest sales volume As early as the Second World War, the British military has listed blueberry juice as one of the military supplies According to a long-standing European folk saying, drinking blueberry juice can make people see better So British fighter pilots have to drink a large glass of blueberry juice before they take off Scientific analysis shows that blueberry juice is rich in anthocyanins It has a strong protective effect on macula of retina and "rhodopsin" (the most basic substance for the eyes to produce vision, which can enhance the sensitivity of adaptation to dark and weak light) It is understood that at present, there are hundreds of blueberry based eye protection foods in the European and American markets, and the main ones are blueberry + lutein, blueberry + grape seed extract, blueberry + VC (VA), etc In addition to blueberries, "carotenoids" are the second most widely used plant-based food materials for eye protection, mainly including lutein, lycopene, cryptoxanthin, zeaxanthin, capsanthin and astaxanthin The sales volume of carotenoids in the international market is up to thousands of tons, most of which are used as eye health food Japan and the United States reported that regular use of astaxanthin (a carotene extracted from seaweed) could prevent fundus hemorrhage and macular degeneration (a major cause of vision loss in the elderly) In addition, astaxanthin eye health food can prevent and treat cataract Other eye health food raw materials that can significantly improve eyesight include: 1 Black beans (the best is "Danbo" black beans originated from Shaanxi Province of China) Japanese scholars have shown that black beans contain more than 18 kinds of anthocyanins, especially the highest content of "cyanidin", which can effectively improve the symptoms of macular degeneration, so eating black beans often is very beneficial to the elderly; 2 Millet Grass is a unique plant in North America Local residents call millet grass "Mingmu grass" There are at least ten kinds of eye protection food with millet grass as the main component in the United States, and the market is good 3 Grape seed extract, its main component is also anthocyanins There are few blueberry extracts in the domestic market However, there are no blueberry resources in Japan All blueberries are imported from overseas It is reported that 90% of the fresh blueberry fruits planted in Northeast China are exported to the Japanese market At present, China has formed a blueberry planting base of tens of thousands of hectares, with an annual output of thousands of tons of fresh blueberry fruits Most blueberry extracts are exported to overseas markets such as Japan, with less domestic sales Although the artificial cultivation of blueberry has developed rapidly in recent years in China, the downstream product market of Blueberry (especially the eye health food market) has not been formed so far As of 2006, there are only "eye treasure" of Shenzhen Haiwang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Tianjin "Youwei eye care package" and "blueberry element" produced by other small manufacturers in China, which use blueberry as the main raw material for eye protection food Most of these products have a flat market and are not well known in the domestic market This situation shows that in order to open the domestic eye health food market, Chinese manufacturers need to do a lot of work In fact, China does not lack anthocyanin eye health food resources For example, blueberries originated from European and American countries have been introduced successfully on a large scale in China In addition, grape is widely planted in northern China, and grape seed is also the main source of anthocyanin China's black bean production ranks first in the world Other eye health food raw materials except millet grass are basically made in China, so there is no "bottleneck problem" in the development of eye health food production in China So, why can the eye health food market in developed countries become larger, while the eye health food market in China is still struggling? The key is that no company can do pioneering work in this area In China, there are a large number of people who use their eyes excessively (such as the majority of primary and secondary school students and the staff who use computers as the main operating tools, etc.), who need to take eye protection food most The middle-aged and the elderly are the other people who need to take eye care food In theory, hundreds of millions of people in China should take eye health food regularly, and the terminal sales volume should be tens of billion yuan But now the market has not really started There are still advantages of traditional Chinese medicine in developing eye health food in China It is understood that at least 20 kinds of Chinese herbal medicines have the function of "clearing the liver and clearing the eyes" (according to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, the liver dominates the eyes, so the Chinese herbal materials for calming the liver and calming the wind have the function of clearing the eyes) This kind of medicine includes: chrysanthemum, cassia seed, Platycodon grandiflorum, fine tea, Cordyceps, gardenia, Angelica dahurica and so on In fact, many ophthalmic drugs in China are made of Chinese patent medicine, so it is a shortcut for Chinese manufacturers to develop ophthalmic health food with Chinese herbal medicine In a word, there is a huge market of 1.3 billion people in China, and the development of new eye health food will undoubtedly have a broad market prospect Functional foods refer to those special foods that have certain preventive and therapeutic effects, which belong to the health food series According to a report released by Datamonitor, a famous international consulting company, the total sales volume of the world's functional food market in 1999 was US $316 billion, with an annual sales growth rate of about 14% Among them, the sales volume of functional food suitable for the elderly accounts for about 1 / 3 The rapid development of functional food market provides a huge platform for the development of health care products manufacturers in various countries (Xu zhengkui)