Food and feed additives
Emulsifiers, texturants, preservatives, sweeteners and feed additives such as amino acids, vitamins and enzymes; together a market of about $114 billion.
Specialty chemicals · Industrial & consumer specialties · No. 91
- Product family
- Feedstock: Crops and biomass
- not published as a family tonnage
- HS 210690
Soft bread, stable yoghurt and fast-growing chickens all rely on small doses of additives worth $114 billion a year.
Chart: Illustration: Food and feed additives
Where it comes from
Chart: Map of where it comes from
Most additives come from farm crops: maize gives starch and glucose for fermentation, with roughly 2 t of glucose making a tonne of lysine.
Three things to know
- Convenience foods, dairy and sauces take about 25.6% of food additives, where starches and gums give texture.
- Soybean oil, a raw material for lecithin and emulsifiers, nearly doubled from $912/t in February 2024 to $1,781/t in May 2026.
- India banned colistin as a feed growth promoter in 2019, shifting demand to probiotics, acidifiers and enzymes.
The journey
- 1 CropsMaize, soybeans, palm oil, sugar, seaweed
- 2 ProcessingMilled into starch, crushed for lecithin
- 3 FermentationLysine, citric acid, xanthan and enzymes
- 4 BlendingPremixes and specialty blends for customers
- 5 Food and feedBakery, drinks, dairy, poultry and pig feed