China is a traditional country of health preservation, and there are a lot of records about nutrition and health in the classics and prescriptions left over from the past dynasties. As we know, the “Inner Canon of Huangdi” and “Compendium of Materia Medica” and other ancient books are the health wealth left by the ancients. However, in the modern sense, health care refers to improving the body’s functions, enhancing physical fitness, reducing the risk of disease, protecting and promoting people’s physical and mental health through technologies, products and services other than medical treatment. In layman’s terms, products and services provided before the occurrence of diseases belong to the category of health products.

Driven by policy and consumer upgrades, China’s health product industry has been growing rapidly. Since 2014, the industry has shown a year-on-year growth trend. By 2019, the market size of health products reached 268.5 billion yuan, with a compound growth rate of 8% from 2015 to 2019.

From the consumer’s perspective, there is a large growth potential in China’s health product market. The expenditure on medical and health care by Chinese residents has grown from 586 yuan in 2009 to 1902 yuan in 2019. However, there is still a significant gap between China and developed countries in terms of per capita expenditure on health products. In 2019, the per capita consumption of health products in China was only $29, which is about one-eighth of that in the United States. China’s per capita disposable income continues to rise, and the number of middle and high-income groups is still growing. This suggests that there is further room for growth in the consumption capacity of health products, indicating a huge potential for overall development.

As an important part of the large health industry, health products, nutritional health foods, and dietary supplements are all set to welcome new development prospects. The entire process from infection to recovery in the COVID-19 epidemic largely depends on the body’s immunity. We can also predict that immunity products will become a new consumer demand. In addition to this, the health industry involves health care products, health equipment, such as air purifiers, disinfection products, functional foods, etc., all of which will usher in new development.

As the health food industry continues to expand, capsule preparations, as a main dosage form of health foods, are gaining an increasing market share. Compared to gelatin empty capsules, vegetable empty capsules have advantages of being safe, stable, having strong adaptability, and being suitable for a wide range of people. Therefore, vegetable empty capsules have a broader market prospect in China.