The development of Stevia industry in China faces multiple challenges

Stevia is a new kind of natural sweetener extracted from Stevia rebaudiana It has the characteristics of high sweetness and low heat energy Its sweetness is 200-300 times that of sucrose, and its heat value is only 1 / 300 of that of sucrose A large number of drug experiments have proved that Stevia has no side effects, no carcinogens, and is safe to eat Regular consumption can prevent hypertension, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, caries and other diseases It is an ideal sweetener to replace sucrose As a kind of sweet food ingredient, stevia can be widely used in moon cake, biscuit, preserved fruit, preserves and other food, beverage, seasoning, wine making and other industries Although Stevia has good nutrition and health characteristics, and its development scale is expanding, the development of Stevia industry in China is also facing many problems In recent two years, the position of Stevia industry in the international market in China is facing unprecedented pressure and challenge from the same industry abroad In order to better develop China's Stevia industry and seek good strategies for the development of Stevia industry, Shanghai Shiyi Technology Co., Ltd held the "2012 third Stevia 360 ° Industry Forum" According to Yu Zhibin, deputy director of traditional Chinese Medicine Department of China Chamber of Commerce for import and export of medical and health products, the challenges faced by Stevia industry in China are mainly manifested in three aspects Firstly, the increase of foreign trade barriers hinders the development of Stevia industry in China to some extent The improvement of pesticide residues, heavy metals, microorganisms and other aspects has brought about the increase of trade barriers, the new demand for enterprise product certification, the increase of enterprise operating costs such as labor costs and high prices of medicinal materials, and the new requirements of the state for environmental protection of production enterprises, etc., which are all new challenges for the next development of the whole plant extract industry in China The biggest challenge for the development of China's plant extraction industry is the industry itself, which includes both the external environment of industrial development and the problems faced by the industry itself In today's international market, the use of technical barriers to trade (TBT) for trade restrictions has become a common tacit secret Especially in developed countries, they use their advantages in technology and industrial development, standards and various administrative regulations, especially green barriers such as pesticide residues, heavy metals, microorganisms, etc to limit and offset some of the advantages of some developing countries in land, resources and labor Although "made in China" has some advantages in the international market, some countries are taking advantage of various possible opportunities to restrict the export of our products and protect their own industrial development, which is more and more likely At present, stevia industry in China has some potential development advantages in the international market However, many countries restrict the export of Stevia through various administrative and technical regulations, technical standards, new requirements for product certification, etc China's Stevia industry is also increasingly troubled by technical barriers to trade when it enters the international market Secondly, the main problems faced by Stevia industry are the improvement of domestic environmental protection standards, the reduction of raw material planting area, the increase of labor and raw material prices and the increase of operating costs According to Chen Yiwen, chairman of Anhui Tianfu Stevia Co., Ltd., which specializes in the production of Stevia, the average selling price of dry leaves of sweet farmers in 2011 was about 8 yuan per kilogram Among them, about 7.5 yuan per kilogram in Northeast China; about 7 yuan per kilogram in Anhui and Jiangsu; higher in Jiangxi and Shandong with unknown price; about 8 yuan per kilogram in Jiuquan After autumn 2012, sweet farmers in China expect the price of dry leaves to be more than 10 yuan per kilogram If it is lower than 10 yuan per kilogram in 2012, the planting area of Stevia in China will be completely zero in 2013 As we all know, the dried leaf of Stevia rebaudiana is the only raw material of Stevia rebaudiana The dried leaf of Stevia rebaudiana is planted by farmers from the land The cost, benefit and market need to be considered when farmers grow Stevia rebaudiana According to relevant data, in 2011, the economic benefits of Stevia growing by sweet farmers in China were generally lower than the income of grain planting It can be seen that the long-term, stable and healthy development of Stevia raw material economy has a great impact on the development of Stevia industry in China Thirdly, the lack of unified standards and poor self-discipline of Chinese plant extract industry are also the main factors that lead to the rapid development of Stevia industry According to industry insiders, the key to the development of plant extracts in China is the control of product quality If the product quality is not up to standard and the fake and inferior products cannot be eliminated, it will have a fatal threat to the industrial development Because the product quality problem is a fatal damage to the confidence of consumers, and from the international development trend, the quality supervision of plant extract products in the United States and other western countries also shows a more stringent trend Therefore, in the absence of a unified standard for plant extract industry in China, the quality of products produced by some manufacturers with poor self-discipline cannot be guaranteed, which to some extent hinders the development of Stevia industry and even the whole plant extract industry in China According to Chen Yiwen, chairman of Anhui Tianfu Stevia Co., Ltd., which specializes in the production of Stevia, China's Stevia sales rely on the international market for a long time, and will inevitably be controlled by others China's Stevia has been produced and listed in 1986, and has been listed for 26 years But in China, the sales situation of Stevia has been unsatisfactory, which can be attributed to four "inadequacies": 1 Insufficient publicity of Stevia industry; 2 Chinese people's insufficient understanding of consumption of sugar and artificial sweeteners, and insufficient change of consumption concept; 3 China's Stevia production enterprises have opened up The investment of developing domestic Stevia marketing market is not enough; 4 Our government does not pay enough attention to Stevia economic development.