Close-Up Look at China's Vitamin Raw Materials Business

After years of effort, especially the big expansion of 2003, China now shares approximately one third of the raw material global vitamin market together with DSM and BASF. Today China can produce every vitamin monomer product in the vitamin family. For many sub-vitamin monomers, about 80%-90% of total production volume are for export. Most manufacturers focus on one or two vitamins, but none can produce the full range. For each single vitamin product, 60%-90% of production capacity is dominated by the top three manufacturers.

China’s raw material vitamin pricing is very sensitive to international pricing. During the past few years, vitamin prices, especially the price of vitamin monomers with big production and export volume, have been in decline. About 75-80% of China’s vitamin raw materials are used to produce animal feed. The rest goes into dietary supplements and foods fortified for health. In the latter, the domestic Chinese consumer...