With the more and more frequent appearance of food for special medical purpose in our vision, people pay more and more attention to infant and young children food for special medical purpose, more and more enterprises have entered the track of infant and young children food for special medical purpose, mining the blue sea of the category.

88 Kinds of food for special medical purpose and a growing trend of development

As of now, China has a total of 88 kinds of food for special medical purpose registered, among which powder products are in the majority, the dosage form of 67 products is powder, and the other 21 are liquid products.

According to the special food information query platform, from 2017 to now, the number of registered food for special medical purpose is roughly on the rise, which also proves that this "blue sea" is promising. From only 3 imported products in 2017 to the rise of domestic products later, 59 domestic products have been registered now. It can be said that the domestic market of food for special medical purpose is also being actively develop.

As of now, among the 38 enterprises producing food for special medical purpose, there are 6 foreign enterprises, which are Nestle, Abbott, Danone, Wyeth, M.L.B.YunYing and Maeil Dairy, and there are 32 Chinese enterprises. In 2017, there were only three kinds of foods for special medical purpose from two foreign enterprises — Abbott and Nutricia; in 2018, two dairy enterprises — Beingmate and Synutra as well as Hengrui Health entered the track of food for special medical purpose; from 2019 to 2021, the number of state-owned enterprises entering food for special medical purpose grew rapidly, of which in 2019 the dairy giant Yili entered the track of food for special medical purpose; in 2020, M.Love also launched food for special medical purpose; and in 2021, dairy enterprises such as Feihe, Ausnutria, YeePer and Wissun also joined the competition. It can be seen that with the increasing market demand, state-owned enterprises also actively layout the market of food for special medical purpose, which is a true reflection of the rapid development of the market.

According to the main business direction of enterprises, in the enterprises for food for special medical purpose passing the formula registration in the market, dairy enterprises, pharmaceutical enterprises, comprehensive food manufacturers are 16, 17, 5, accounting for 42%, 45%, 13% respectively. Analysis shows that now the competitive market of food for special medical can be said to present a situation of tripartite confrontation, not only among dairy enterprises in the fight, but enterprises with pharmaceutical background and some comprehensive food manufacturers share the soup.

The type and distribution of infant and young children food for special medical purpose

At present, there are various kinds of infant and young children foods for special medical purpose, among them, formula with no or low lactose, milk protein partially hydrolyzed formula, full nutrition formula and premature delivery/low birth weight infant formula are more, while breast milk supplements, amino acid metabolism disorder formula, milk protein deep hydrolysis/amino acid formula, benzene acetone urine formula are in the minority.

In the market of infant and young children food for special medical purpose, whether more and more dairy enterprises involved, or enterprises with pharmaceutical background enter, or the number of domestic products surge, all show the fact that the market category of infant and young children food for special medical purpose is growing. It is worth noting that, as a rigid category, the professionalism of infant and young children food for special medical purpose is extremely strong, both for the enterprise's scientific research costs, or for the professional knowledge of channels and consumers.

Source: Milk Powder Circle

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