Eight Authorities Issue Joint Document to Boost Marine Health Food Industry
Boost Marine Health Food Industry
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, June 1 (Reporter Dai Xiaohe) The State Administration for Market Regulation, National Medical Products Administration, Ministry of Natural Resources and five other central departments have recently jointly issued a guideline to accelerate the high-quality development of marine medicines and functional products. Prioritizing breakthroughs in key sectors including marine health food, marine pharmaceuticals and marine biomaterials, the document aims to drive high-quality growth of the marine industry.
The marine health food sector constitutes a vital segment of the marine industry. Major categories of marine health foods fall into three groups: polyunsaturated fatty acids (such as fish oil and krill oil), polysaccharides (including chitosan and sea cucumber polysaccharide), as well as proteins and peptides (like fish collagen peptide and oyster peptide). These products serve as key supplies catering to people’s diverse health needs such as antioxidant support, immune regulation and brain health maintenance.
Per the guideline, while enforcing stringent registration and filing supervision to guarantee product quality and safety for health foods, the State Administration for Market Regulation targets highly demanded health functions including antioxidation, memory improvement and physical fatigue relief. It backs research institutions and industrial enterprises to upgrade the marine health food sector via modern biotechnologies, speeds up the development and application of novel raw materials and health functions for marine health foods, and prioritizes the research and production of marine health foods with innovative functions to better meet public health demands.
China boasts abundant offshore biological resources, with world-leading supply capacity of raw materials such as seaweed, shrimp and crab shells, and deep-sea organisms. Its annual output of alginate stands at approximately 50,000 metric tons, accounting for 80 percent of the global total; chitin and chitosan output reaches 35,000 metric tons per year, making up over 80 percent of global production. Capacity for exploiting pelagic and deep-sea resources keeps expanding, and industrialized utilization of deep-sea microbial resources has been realized. This delivers a steady, low-cost and sustainable supply of premium raw materials for marine health foods, forming a fully independent and controllable industrial chain spanning resource exploitation, raw material processing and finished product manufacturing.
Leveraging self-sufficient raw material supplies and technological strengths, China has seen expanding product ranges and consistent quality improvements in marine health foods. Efforts to build a catalog of health food raw materials are moving forward steadily. To date, 10 functional raw materials including fish oil and spirulina have been added to the catalog for filed health food raw materials. This measure has effectively cut enterprises’ compliance costs, shortened product launch cycles, and injected robust momentum into the marine health food industry.
It is learned that the State Administration for Market Regulation has set up a collaborative review mechanism featuring technical coordination and joint expert assessment for new raw materials and new functional claims of health foods. The authority also actively guides and supports third-party technical institutions to participate in tackling technical challenges concerning the quality and safety of marine health foods, facilitating the marine industry’s shift from expansion driven by scale to growth led by quality.
