In November 2025, the Food Safety Standards and Monitoring and Evaluation Department of the National Health Commission issued Announcement No. 7 of 2025, officially approving elderberry anthocyanins as a novel food ingredient. The black elderberry extract, declared by Shanghai Weida and sourced from a European company, has obtained legal status for food applications in China. This marks that elderberry raw materials, well validated in overseas markets, have officially entered China’s food and beverage sector. It brings a premium innovative botanical ingredient to China’s functional food industry, with the potential to reshape the product landscape of the immune health market and expand into additional fields including gut health and clean-label coloration.

For a long time, elderberry has mostly circulated in China as imported dietary supplements or plain fruit powder. Ambiguous regulatory status has restricted its large-scale commercial adoption in mainstream foods and beverages. The approval as a novel food ingredient removes a critical barrier preventing elderberry from moving from an overseas niche ingredient into China’s mass consumer market, and provides domestic food brands with a new raw material solution for differentiated competition. For the industry, elderberry’s market potential lies not only in the intrinsic properties of the raw material itself, but also in how downstream enterprises explore and expand its end-product applications.

Well Validated across European and American Markets: Elderberry Grows into a Major Herbal Ingredient

Elderberry is a highly sought-after functional botanical ingredient in Europe and North America. The PubMed database contains more than 1,700 relevant research papers, with dozens to hundreds of new studies published annually. A substantial body of research investigates the botanical activity and health benefits of elderberry, laying a solid foundation of scientific data.

Elderberry fruit is rich in polyphenolic active compounds including anthocyanins, flavonols and phenolic acids. Technavio market data projects the global elderberry market to reach USD 960 million by 2027, representing a compound annual growth rate of 6.72% from 2022 to 2027. In the overseas dietary supplement sector, if vitamin C serves as a staple base ingredient, elderberry ranks among the most popular herbal raw materials. Since 2020, elderberry has consistently secured a top-three position in the U.S. herbal dietary supplement market and is regarded by international consumers as a household herbal staple. Beyond extract formulations, traditional elderberry products such as jams and syrups enjoy broad consumer acceptance.

Even amid shifting market conditions, elderberry has demonstrated strong market resilience. In 2024, elderberry generated USD 145 million in sales through mainstream U.S. channels and USD 22.82 million via natural retail channels. Stable daily supplementation habits have formed across all age groups including children, adults and the elderly, making it one of the few botanical ingredients suitable for building full-age product portfolios.

Beyond Immune Health: Exploring Diversified Industrial Value of Elderberry

Immune support is elderberry’s most widely recognized application. However, over-reliance on this single segment can trap brands in homogeneous competition while exposing them to seasonal demand fluctuations. Overseas research and industrial practices indicate elderberry also holds development potential as a “next-generation prebiotic”.

Conventional prebiotics are fermented by gut microbiota to produce short-chain fatty acids that nourish beneficial bacteria. A large proportion of polyphenols in elderberry function as non-traditional prebiotics: poorly absorbed in the small intestine, they travel to the colon for utilization by gut microbes and actively modulate gut microbiota diversity. Relevant studies show that microbial metabolism of polyphenols yields beneficial small metabolites including short-chain fatty acids.

When positioned solely for seasonal immune support, sales typically peak in autumn and winter and decline in off-seasons. Shifting the development focus toward daily gut health maintenance transforms elderberry into a year-round daily nutritional supplement. This helps lift consumer repurchase rates, delivers more stable orders for raw material manufacturers and unlocks larger market potential.

Domestic Launch of the New Ingredient: Innovation Benefits Across Three Major Product Directions

The approval of elderberry anthocyanins as a novel food ingredient injects new innovative momentum into China’s broader health industry. Downstream product opportunities concentrate on three areas: upgraded immune health products, innovative food and beverage snacks, and specialty dosage form development.

1. Iterative Upgrading of Immune Health Products

China’s immune health market has long been dominated by ingredients such as vitamins, minerals and lactoferrin. Consumers are increasingly demanding natural and mild raw materials. Elderberry features a natural fruity taste with good palatability and adapts to diverse innovative dosage forms, including gummies, syrups, instant powders and pressed candies.

Elderberry is already widely used in child-focused health products overseas, offering domestic brands opportunities for localization and upgrading. Meanwhile, domestic consumption for immune health is shifting from seasonal emergency use toward long-term daily care. Elderberry’s functional profile aligns perfectly with this consumption trend, enabling brands to reach broader demographics and expand high-frequency daily consumption scenarios.

2. Food, Beverages and Snacks as Commercial Breakthrough Points

Chinese consumers have higher expectations for taste, flavor and clean formulations. Beverages and snack foods represent key channels for scaling elderberry anthocyanins commercially.

Beyond its bioactive properties, elderberry anthocyanins act as a natural colorant, aligning with the global clean-label trend and capable of partially replacing synthetic pigments. Incorporating this ingredient allows brands to deliver functional benefits while naturally coloring products, reducing artificial additives and improving ingredient transparency. It is highly suitable for functional beverages, dairy products, snacks and similar categories.

3. New Development Opportunities for Gummy Formulations

Gummies remain one of the most popular dosage forms in functional foods today. Elderberry delivers natural fruit color for appealing visual presentation and inherent fruit aroma, lowering reliance on additional flavorings. Nevertheless, anthocyanins have limited chemical stability and degrade under light exposure, high temperatures, pH variation and oxygen exposure. Downstream formulation development requires technical solutions to address stability challenges.

Proven compound formulations widely adopted overseas include elderberry paired with vitamin C, zinc or prebiotics. These combinations are expected to become common formulation strategies for domestic gummy products in the future.

Raw Material Processing Defines Quality: Coexisting Industrial Opportunities and Practical Challenges

For the industrialization of any new ingredient, high-quality raw materials form the foundation of product competitiveness. Elderberry anthocyanins demand rigorous extraction processes to preserve heat-sensitive active substances such as anthocyanins and polyphenols. European raw material suppliers adopt IPF solvent-free filtration technology to avoid activity loss caused by conventional thermal and solvent treatments. Precise pore-size filtration removes residues and low-molecular impurities, maximally retaining natural nutrients including anthocyanins, polyphenols, vitamins and amino acids to produce elderberry ingredients with high bioavailability.

Within China’s domestic industry, the development of elderberry anthocyanins still faces multiple practical hurdles. First, consumer awareness remains in the early cultivation stage, requiring ongoing market education. Second, the inherent stability limitations of anthocyanins impose stricter requirements on formulation research and process control for food manufacturers. Additionally, enterprises must strictly follow official announcements regarding labeling specifications, permitted scope of use and maximum dosage limits for this novel food ingredient.

In the long run, the value of elderberry anthocyanins extends beyond immune health alone. Featuring both polyphenolic bioactivity and natural coloring properties, and applicable across dietary supplements, beverages and snacks, it has the potential to evolve into an important botanical functional ingredient in China.

The approval of elderberry anthocyanins as a novel food ingredient marks a significant raw material upgrade within China’s functional food sector. This botanical extract, validated through years of overseas commercialization, has obtained official approval for the Chinese market. It can serve as an upgraded ingredient for immune health products, support daily gut health formulations, and empower clean-label foods and beverages via natural coloring functionality.

Despite promising opportunities, the industry must continue advancing raw material extraction optimization, formulation stability research and consumer education. Moving forward, with sustained investment from upstream and downstream enterprises, elderberry anthocyanins are expected to fully realize their industrial value and deliver a wider selection of healthy food options for Chinese consumers.

Disclaimer: This article is industry news compiled from public industrial resources and academic literature and does not constitute any health or efficacy claims. Enterprises using this raw material must comply strictly with regulatory requirements specified in the national announcement for novel food ingredients.

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