Huatai Securities: New Food Ingredients Transition from "Proof of Concept" to "Industrial Replacement"

According to a report by Huatai Securities, the resonance of policy dividends, technological breakthroughs, and demand pull is driving new food ingredients from marginal innovation to the mainstream of the industry. According to Zhitikiao, from 2020 to the end of the first half of 2026, the National Health Commission has approved a total of 68 new food ingredients, a 47.8% increase from the previous phase; in 2025, 15 were approved for the entire year, setting a new high in recent years, with 53 applications received, a year-on-year increase of 77%; by the first half of 2026, 12 new food ingredients have been approved, and it is expected that more than 20 will be approved for the whole year. The acceleration of approvals is driven by the in-depth promotion of the "Healthy China 2030" strategy and rapid breakthroughs in synthetic biology technology. The competitive logic of new food ingredients has shifted from "who applies first" to "whose process is more robust," as the maturity of technologies such as microbial fermentation and precise biosynthesis enables previously hard-to-scale ingredients to meet commercialization conditions, transitioning the industry chain from "concept validation" to "industry implementation."