Summary: Three new food additives, D-Allulose, arabinoxylan and 2′-FL, are expected to be approved in China this year.

In 2022, the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China (NHC) received 14 new food raw material applications, including two sweeteners fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and D-Allulose which are made from brown sugar and rejected the applications of adding isomaltodextrin to the catalogue of new food raw materials in April.

On 9 June, 2022, the new food raw material application of FOS produced from brown sugar was accepted. FOS is prepared from the sucrose sourced from brown sugar catalysed by fructosyltransferase. But the NHC terminated the review on 5 Jan., 2023 because China already had a national standard for FOS.

In Aug. 2022, the NHC accepted the application of D-Allulose as a new food raw material. In Dec., 2022, the National Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment (CFSA) publicly solicited opinion on the application of D-allulose-3-epimerase as a new enzyme preparation for the food industry. If this enzyme is approved, the domestic production of D-Allulose to be sold in China will be compliant, further speeding up the approval of D-Allulose as a new food raw material. D-Allulose is expected to be approved in the second half of 2023. By that time, there will be competition among manufacturers.

On 14 March, 2022, the CFSA released an announcement to solicit public comments for the new food raw material application of arabinoxylan. Arabinoxylan is a structural polysaccharide found in the cell walls of plants like cereal grains consisting of arabinose and xylose. It is considered an important dietary fibre and functional sugar. Arabinoxylan is made from sugarcane bagasse, wheat bran, corn bran or other plants in the Gramineae family by pre-treatment, sodium carbonate extraction, dealkalisation, concentration, neutralisation, sedimentation, cleaning, purification, drying and other processes.

On 10 Feb., an announcement was released by the CFSA for public comments on the new food additive application of 2'-fucosyllactose (2'-FL). 2'-FL is produced from the bacterial strain BL21(DE3)E. coli, with Neisseria spp. as the donor. 2′-Fucosyllactose (2'-FL) is the most abundant human milk oligosaccharides (HMO) in breast milk. It is used as a food nutrition enhancer. Authorities such as the US Food and Drug Administration, the European Commission, and the Food Standards Australia New Zealand have permitted 2'-FL to be used in infant formula products.