Demand for food safety products in China is forecast to increase 15 percent per annum through 2013 to 13.0 billion yuan. Growth will be driven by the continuing expansion of food and beverage output, especially in the processed food, beverage and dairy product segments which are more intensive users of these products. A greater focus on food safety and supply chain security by larger food processing firms in China will also boost gains. This will be partly in response to enhanced government regulation, in particular the Food Safety Law introduced in 2009. However, despite this healthy outlook, there remain a number of factors restraining the overall level of food safety product sales in China. Firstly, apart from large food processors and government inspection agencies, awareness of food safety practices in China is low. In particular, fragmented foodservice and agricultural sectors consume far lower amounts of food safety products than would be expected given their output levels. These and other trends are presented in Food Safety in China, a new study from the Beijing office of The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industry research firm.

Disinfection products will remain the largest food safety product category through 2013, when sales will reach 8.0 billion yuan. Gains will be driven by the increasing use of disinfectants and sanitizers in food processing plants, as well as by fast growing demand for pasteurization equipment by dairy and beverage firms in China. Strong gains in sales of diagnostic testing products will be driven by the rising numbers of food processor and government agency tests for pathogenic and nonpathogenic contaminants. In particular, the proliferation of low priced, rapid response testing products will boost gains.

The strongest gains will be in the tracking product segment, with demand for RFID and other smart labels and tags, as well as tracking software systems, benefiting from concerns over supply chain security. Increases in the preservatives segment will lag overall gains to some extent, largely due to the more mature nature of this product segment. However, annual demand growth of almost 13 percent will be fueled by increases in processed food and beverage output, as well as by preservative price gains.