News Information

Recently, Yantai Wanhe Flavors Co., Ltd. was established with a registered capital of 200 million yuan. Its business scope includes the sale of food additives. Sales of feed additives Manufacturing of daily chemical products Sales of daily chemical products, etc. According to the equity penetration by Qichacha, the company is jointly held by Wanhua Chemical and Jinhe Industrial.

It is learned that this is not the first time that Wanhua Chemical and Jinhe Industrial have cooperated. Last August, Wanhua Nutrition Technology and Jinhe Industrial signed a cooperation framework agreement and will carry out all-round and in-depth cooperation in the field of spices. It is learned that both sides plan to integrate their respective advantages and carry out capacity cooperation. They will give priority to upgrading the technology and expanding the capacity of the Jiale Musk plant. After the expansion, the annual scale of Jiale Musk will reach 10,000 tons.

Jinhe Industrial mainly engages in the research and development, production and sales of fine chemical products such as food additives and pharmaceutical intermediates. The company's products include sweeteners such as acesulfame potassium and sucralose, as well as flavor products like maltol and ethyl maltol. The company's headquarters is located in Chuzhou City, Anhui Province.

Wanhua has made a strong entry into the market

In recent years, Wanhua Chemical has been making a strong entry into the market of spices and nutritional products with its signature "technological breakthrough + full industrial chain" strategy.

In August 2024, Wanhua Chemical announced that its 48,000-ton/year citral plant had successfully completed a one-time trial run and produced qualified products. This not only marks the official commissioning of the world's largest single-capacity citral plant, but also indicates that Wanhua has completed its strategic layout in the fields of flavors and fragrances as well as nutritional chemicals.

Citral is hailed as the "crown jewel" among fine chemicals, and its production process is complex with extremely high technical difficulty. As a key intermediate in the production of fragrances and nutritional products, citral is an indispensable core fragrance in the fragrance raw material market and is widely used in multiple industries such as food, cosmetics, and medicine.

More importantly, citral is the core raw material for the production of vitamin A and vitamin E. In the global market, this field has long been monopolized by the German chemical giant BASF, which holds nearly 80% of the market share. Wanhua's entry into the market will completely change this pattern.

According to analysis, the breakthroughs of Wanhua Chemical are reflected in three aspects:

Scale advantage: With an annual production capacity of 48,000 tons, it far exceeds Newhechen's 8,000 tons and Kuraray's 5,000 tons, making it the world's largest single-unit production capacity facility.

Technological autonomy: Both Wanhua Chemical and BASF adopt the isobutylene - formaldehyde process, but Wanhua Chemical has achieved a technological breakthrough through independent research and development. Another manufacturer in the industry, Xinhecheng, has adopted the dehydrolinalool method.

Industrial chain collaboration: The citral plant is integrated with downstream derivative plants such as geraniol and citronellol to form a complete industrial chain.

It is particularly worth noting that the production of citral in Wanhua coincided with a crucial time when BASF's German factory was shut down due to an accident. In July 2024, A fire broke out at BASF's Ludwigshafen plant, causing force majeure to its vitamin A, E and several types of flavor raw material facilities. It is expected that production will not resume before January 2025. This unexpected event led to a sharp increase in global vitamin prices, with the price of VA once rising by 174%. The timely commissioning of Wanhua not only alleviated the tight market supply but also demonstrated the crucial role of Chinese enterprises in the global supply chain.

The expansion history of Wanhua Flavors

Wanhua Chemical's foray into the spice industry was not a sudden whim but a meticulous plan that lasted for 13 years. According to the sorting

In 2011, Wanhua Chemical began small-scale trial research on citral products.

In 2018: Wanhua Chemical disclosed the environmental impact assessment of its synthetic fragrance project for the second time.

In 2021: The Wanhua Citral and Its Derivatives Integrated Project was officially announced to the public.

In August 2023, Wanhua Chemical established Wanhua Nutrition Technology Co., LTD., focusing on spices, nutritional products and high-end intermediates.

In August 2024: The world's largest citral plant was put into operation, and at the same time, a cooperation framework agreement in the fragrance field was signed with Jinhe Industrial.

This series of actions indicates that Wanhua Chemical's layout in the fragrance sector is a systematic and long-term strategic choice rather than a short-term speculative behavior.

Not just citral

Wanhua's layout in the fragrance field is far beyond the single product of citral. According to public information, its spice business territory also includes the "High-efficiency green asymmetric catalytic preparation of L-menthol technology" developed in collaboration with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, establishing a 1,000-ton-per-year industrial facility, and becoming the fourth company in the world to master this technology. In addition, in June 2021, the Meishan Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau approved the environmental impact assessment of the Wanhua Meishan base, which includes the fine chemical project of linalol (18,000 tons per year) and vitamin E (20,000 tons per year). In May 2022, Wanhua Penglai announced an environmental impact assessment showing that it plans to build A 4,200-ton β -violet ketone + vitamin A project.

By now, Wanhua has completed the overall business layout of citrial and its downstream products in flavors and fragrances (geraniol, geraniol, violetone, linalool, menthol, flavoring agent WS3, etc.) and nutritional chemicals (vitamin A and vitamin E). This strategy of full industrial chain layout is precisely the key factor for Wanhua's success in the MDI field. Nowadays, this model has been replicated in the spice industry, and it is expected to create another "spice version of Wanhua".

From MDI to citral, Wanhua Chemical has once again demonstrated the breakthrough capabilities of Chinese enterprises in the high-end chemical sector. As a leading chemical enterprise, Wanhua Chemical is achieving a leap from following to taking the lead in one niche field after another with its unique "technological breakthrough + full industrial chain" model.

Although the market size of the spice industry is not large, it has high technical barriers and high added value, making it a typical "small but beautiful" field. Wanhua's entry into the market will not only change the global supply chain landscape but also enhance China's say in the fine chemical industry. In the future, we may witness more Chinese enterprises like Wanhua breaking foreign monopolies in more niche fields and achieving a transformation from "Made in China" to "Created in China".