According to the "China Food Grade Phosphate Market Depth Assessment and Forecast Report (2022 Edition)", phosphate is a compound composed of phosphorus-oxygen tetrahedron, which can be divided into different categories according to anion and cation: cations can be divided into more than ten types such as sodium phosphate, potassium salt, ammonium salt, calcium salt, etc. Sodium phosphate is most used in food processing, followed by potassium salt, calcium salt and ammonium salt. From the anion can be divided into orthophosphates and condensed phosphates, the use of a wide range of condensed phosphates are sodium tripolyphosphate, sodium pyrophosphate and sodium hexametaphosphate. Orthophosphates are small varieties in food processing and are usually used with condensed phosphates.

Phosphates are widely used in the food sector. There are 31 types of food phosphates allowed in the United States and 26 in Japan. At present, China's laws and regulations (GB2760-2014) allow the use of a total of 19 kinds of phosphoric acid and phosphate products, functions include moisture retention agents, leavening agents, acidity regulators, stabilizers, coagulants, anti-caking agents and so on.

Foreign companies engaged in food-grade phosphate include Budenheim, Therm2phors, Innophos, ICL, PRAYON, etc. The main characteristics of foreign food grade phosphate are complete varieties, many series, high monomer quality, strong pertinence, technical services in place, and the price is much higher than that of Chinese products.

From the mandatory implementation of food additives standard GB2760, it can be seen that the use of phosphate is more and more extensive. New uses of sodium tripolyphosphate and sodium hexametaphosphate have been applied and approved. There is a huge consumer market in China, a developing market. The world's phosphate giants have entered the big market of China, setting up offices, R & D institutions and even processing plants in China.

China's phosphate production has formed a huge industrial-grade and food-grade scale. Food-grade products account for a large proportion, but the profit is not high. Most enterprises produce low-end raw material grade products, the product grade and technical content is relatively low, in the awkward position of producing raw materials for foreign manufacturers. Although various enterprises have seen that the development trend of phosphate is compounding, there are few Chinese enterprises that can really launch high-end products, most of which are low-end products, with simple process and formula, low product quality and poor batch stability, so it is difficult to win the favor of end users.

By 2024, the total global market for food-grade phosphates will exceed $2.4 billion, with a growth rate of 6%. Strong demand from the dairy, bread, beverage and meat processing industries continues to drive the growth of the market size, which is driven by factors such as consumer awareness of healthy diets.

At present, domestic enterprises should focus on introducing foreign advanced technology, strengthen independent innovation of core technology, extend the industrial chain, extend the value chain, and resolutely create food-grade phosphate products with compound formula, high quality and high added value.