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The Chinese government has taken more stringent measures to strengthen supervision of food safety.The public's overall food safety awareness, as well as higher demand for natural, nutritious and healthy foods, is seen as the main driver behind these regulations.The introduction of new regulations has brought more market opportunities for certain commodities, such as yeast extract.

The growing emphasis on food quality and safety by the government and the food industry, as well as the new version of the national standards for food safety and the hygiene standards for the use of food additives (GB2760 2011) adopted last year, may be an important factor influencing the growth of the yeast extract market in China.

FLEXNEWS spoke with yu minghua, general manager of leading yeast extract producer Bailin Group., the world's third largest yeast manufacturer, to learn about market opportunities for yeast extract.

Mr Yu first stressed the importance of gb2760-2011.The new standards are more stringent, he said, not only redefining the range and amount of food additives allowed, but also reclassifying some foods.It is conceivable that products such as yeast and yeast extract, which have always been classified as food, will have a wider range of applications.

In China, yeast extract is the only food attribute product among the three flavor substances (MSG, I+G, and yeast extract), and is the new, natural and nutritious flavor agent most popular in the food and condiment industry, yu minghua told FLEXNEWS.

Yu minghua believes that the further definition of yeast extract's food property clarifies some misunderstanding in the past, and the food industry has been able to clearly recognize the yeast extract's leading role as umami.

Yeast extract is a kind of umami extracted from natural edible yeast cells, which is rich in glutamic acid, peptides, inosine and guanosine.Yeast extract is also a good organic nutrient source for microbial culture medium.The global food industry is working to reduce sodium in its products.According to yu minghua, yeast extract provides an excellent solution for this. Unlike MSG and I+G, it can present umami and enhance taste well in low-salt foods.

"Adding appropriate yeast extract to foods and condiments with low salt content (less than 4 percent) can significantly enhance the freshness of products," yu said.That is to say, yeast extract can also be very delicious in the case of low sodium salt, which is not reached by MSG and I+G.So adding yeast extract to foods and condiments can reduce your body's salt intake.

In recent years, Chinese yeast extract demand has grown at an annual rate of more than 10 percent, compared with about 5 percent growth in the U.S. and European markets.Yu estimates that the global annual production of yeast extract is about 160,000 tons.