The citral industry has high technical threshold and large market development space

Citral is an organic compound with lemon aroma and an important component in lemon, citrus and mixed fruit flavors. Currently, the citral products currently on the market mainly include synthetic citral and natural citral. Synthetic citral has a larger market share, but natural citral has a broader market prospect. The natural citral production and citral synthesis processes are relatively complex, require high equipment, and waste treatment is difficult, which raises the technical threshold for companies to enter the citral industry.

The upstream of the citral industry chain is the raw material supply layer, which mainly includes the planting and purchasing of plant raw materials such as lemons and orange peels; the middle reaches of the industry chain is the production layer of citral production. Since the production of natural citral is not high, the current mainstream products in the industry are Artificial citral synthesized by chemical methods; the downstream of the industrial chain is the application field of citral, which is mainly used in the manufacture of perfumes, cosmetics, detergents, pesticides and other products.

The citral industry has broad development prospects. As consumption levels increase and residents pay more attention to health and green products, citral will be more widely used in food, beverages, tobacco, cosmetics and other fields, and market demand will continue to grow. In addition, with technological advancement and improvement of the industrial chain, citral production costs will continue to decrease and product competitiveness will continue to increase.

According to the “2023-2028 China Citral Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report released by the Industrial Research Center, lemon Aldehydes belong to the field of fine chemicals and are one of the strategic emerging industries focused on development in my country. The state’s support for the citral industry is mainly reflected in policies and funds. For example, policies such as “Made in China 2025” and “New Chemical Materials Industry Development Plan” have put forward clear requirements and support measures for the development of the citral industry. In addition, the government’s vigorous promotion of energy conservation and emission reduction policies and the increase or decrease in the price of citral raw materials will also have an impact on the development of the citral industry.

At present, there are only three citral manufacturers in the world, namely BASF of Germany, Kuraray of Japan and Xinhecheng of my country. However, Xinhecheng’s citral industry chain is complete, and the citral it produces is mainly for its own use and is basically not sold on the market. Wanhua Chemical Company announced in 2021 that it will enter the citral industry and complete production in 2023-2024. It plans to build a flavor and fragrance product platform with citral as the core and continue to extend to other flavor and fragrance products.

​Industry analysts said that there are few citral companies in the world, market competition has eased, production capacity is relatively backward, and the market development space is large. However, the technical threshold of the citral industry is relatively high, and companies without experience in manufacturing fine chemicals are not recommended to enter the industry. Existing citral companies in my country should strengthen technological innovation to improve production efficiency and product quality; cooperate with upstream and downstream industries to coordinate development and promote each other; respond to government environmental protection policies and promote the development of the industry in a green direction.