Human beings have a long love for plant fragrance, whether it is the royal family in history, or the common people. And as the growth of world economy, the improvement of science and technology level and the progress of human civilization, the application of people to aromatic plant from the most primitive manual production to the industrial production of scale, returned to advocate the idea of nature again now. Faced with the increasing market demand, "aromatic industry" ushered in unprecedented development opportunities and challenges.

The origin of aromatic industry lies in the cultivation of aromatic plants and the production of flavors and fragrances. There are about 6,000 kinds of spices in the world, and the total value of the global fragrance market reached about 22 billion US dollars in 2010. And the world's largest natural flavor producer, in fact, is "China". By the end of 2012, there were 329 enterprises above designated size in the perfume and flavor manufacturing industry in China. In 2012, the total assets of the fragrance and essence manufacturing industry reached 38.99 billion yuan, and increased annually. At the same time, China is also a big consumption of aromatic industry, according to incomplete statistics, China's average annual consumption of aromatic industry as high as more than 70 billion yuan, and there is still a huge room for growth. Aroma industry chain involves a wide range, it can be said that the future of China's economic development, a potential new growth point.

The following is Professor Yao Lei from Shanghai Jiao Tong University's further elaboration on the current situation and development of aroma industry at home and abroad

Guest profile

Yao Lei

Professor, School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Doctoral Supervisor

Director of Aromatic Plant Research Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Persistent, because of love but also because of responsibility

Many people evaluate me as a persistent person, because the research on aromatic plants has been full of difficulties and hardships along the way, but I have never wavered in my love for it. I think this persistence is due to love, but more importantly, it is a responsibility. In the past two years, I have attended several international conferences related to the essential oils of aromatic plants. The European and American counterparts said that today we feel that the development of natural spices in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in China, is the world. Due to the large amount of essential oil resources in your country, coupled with the recession in Europe and the United States, Givaudan (the global leader in the field of daily and edible flavors) and IFF (the United States International Flavors & Fragrances Company) have shifted their development strategies to China, Asia Pacific and Latin American countries. On May 24, 2013, Swiss Finn good pleasure (the second in the world the essence of the company) established a large r&d center in Shanghai minhang district, the President said in a research and development center opening ceremony, did so, the reason is that China's 2010 flavoring products sales of 20 billion yuan, is expected to more than 40 billion yuan in 2015 (and in 2010 the world's top ten flavors and total sales amount is also however 100 billion yuan).

We can also see that a new round of natural spice origin resources will become a new international heavy spice companies. Companies have made it a big investment to open up new natural flavor bases, and Givaudan has made the construction of natural flavor bases a top priority, especially for scarce resources. For example, sandalwood in Australia, vanillum in Madagascar, benzoin in Laos, ylang ylang in the Komoro Islands and other places to build their own planting bases. There was an interesting episode at the International Essential Oil Conference of Asia in May 2013. Since the conference was held in Indonesia, there were many locals from the spice growing base among the attendees. An Indonesian base manager's complaint that Indonesia has most of the tropical varieties of natural spices, but local farmers make little money while European and American sellers make a lot of money, sparked a heated debate at the conference. In June 2013, the American big mint A.M.T ODD company visit to Shanghai jiaotong university center of aromatic plants, research the status quo of peppermint origin in China, China was once the kingdom of mint, after the defeat by India price war, from the mint base in China has been in the doldrums, and mint irreplaceable status in natural flavor, which country has this card, which country words, America is in an unprecedented manner watching how China will play. Facing the global strategic shift of spices, whether we can grasp the opportunity, whether we have the ability to face it? Should we consider what kind of talent to cultivate to meet the needs of the market society?

Give full play to and make good use of cross-platform advantages, fundamentally solve the problem of talent quality

In any industry, its ups and downs are closely associated with the talent, flavoring industry there Shanghai institute of spices, was founded in the 1950 s, during its boom has many researchers engaged in natural spices, they make a lot of contributions for the construction of China's natural flavor base, but then the advent of the era of synthetic chemistry of omnipotent, languishing in the area. In the 80's of last century there is Shanghai light industry junior college (now changed to Shanghai Institute of Technology), because of the natural flavor teaching and the lack of researchers and teachers, cause our country in the field of research and technical personnel very lack of fait fait. But the number of talents cannot be simply copied. Even a tenfold expansion of the existing teaching and research system would not help the industry catch up with international standards. From the perspective of international vision, the talent training is not in the field of fine chemical industry and the depth of the flavouring technology problems, and this kind of talents must accept aromatic plant varieties breeding, standardized cultivation techniques (agriculture in the field of botany, cultivation of learning) of training, but also proficient in extraction, separation, purification, detection analysis technique (plant chemical, fine chemical industry), to understand efficacy and safety studies (pharmaceutical, medicine), certainly must have the flavouring, aesthetic experience, can be harnessed in the industry. That is to say, talents in this field can only be completed through cross-disciplinary talent training system. Only by making full use of the cross-platform of science, industry, agriculture and medicine like Jiaotong University can the quality problem of talents be fundamentally solved by focusing on the demand.

The end of last century, by essential oil (from the aroma of fragrant plant extract ingredients, more for liquid, a volatile) as a carrier of another industry (for) you use the word, Aromatherapy, Aromatherapy, massage with fragrant plant essential oil by sniffing or meaning to exercise the body get care method), its products in China's health care, beauty and so on. Due to consumers' doubts about the credibility of merchants, a large number of foreign essential oil brands emerged, and it was difficult to distinguish the authenticity from the fake. The author has called for the safe use of essential oils in different places, but from the side we can see the huge space of essential oils in China's human health care market. Because there is no professional scientific research project in this field in our country, there is no professional personnel training in universities, there is a shortage of talents in this field, and professional standards have not yet been issued, all these reflect that scientific research in this field is very necessary

"Most Essential Oil" focuses on Chinese aromatic industry with you

"Most Essential Oil" is a self-media platform, committed to promoting essential oil and aromatherapy culture, while paying attention to the development of the entire aromatic industry.

"Most Essential Oil" will participate in China International Aromatic Industry (Luoyang) Exhibition 2105 on April 24-27, 2015. I will be in charge of the exhibition area of "essential oils and aromatherapy".

A total of 50 booths, fully open to the public, we sincerely invite domestic and foreign brands of essential oil, aromatherapy education and other institutions to cooperate in the exhibition, together to help China's aromatic industry!