China's Food-as-Medicine Supply Chain Is Moving Into Formal Planning

A policy proposal from the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party Central Committee has put the food-as-medicine supply chain into public text. For anyone making herbal drinks, tonic foods or supplying raw materials, it is worth reading closely. It deals with planning, market access, standards, funding and the language used to promote products — the points that only start to hurt when things move from paper to shelf.

The first signal: food-as-medicine materials are heading into formal planning

On 8 October 2026, the People's Political Consultative Conference Daily published a digest of proposals under the heading "Improving Trade Supervision Capacity and Level (Part Two)." The proposal from the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party Central Committee, titled "Making the Food-as-Medicine Materials Supply Chain Bigger and Stronger," appears in it.

The first point is direct: bring the development of the food-as-medicine materials supply chain into the national high-quality development plan for the broader health industry, and draw up a dedicated development plan. It also proposes a national-level deliberative body for the sector, government-led with coordinated departments. The rationale describes these resources as "distinctive health resources."

This is not an isolated statement. The Chongming District government in Shanghai, in its "15th Five-Year" special plan for manufacturing, lists food-as-medicine functional foods under "better living industries," alongside high-end cookware and prepared dishes — a shift from primary raw materials toward finished consumer goods.

Local plans tend to move first; parks, investment promotion and dedicated funding usually follow. If you supply raw materials, check whether your production region's plan includes this line.

Market access: two paths will separate more clearly

The proposal recommends bringing food-as-medicine materials with clearly defined functions into the health food catalogue under a filing system, and speeding up review and approval for traditional Chinese medicinal materials with a long history of consumption and verified safety, simplifying access procedures.

In plain terms: the two paths — ordinary food and health food — will be drawn more clearly apart. Filing can mean a faster process, but only if the documentation is complete and the basis is solid.

What you can do now is build a file for each of your main raw materials — consumption history, origin, test reports, formulation basis — kept in one place. Do not wait until filing day to dig out purchase orders from three years ago.

Standards: do not wait — establish your own first

The proposal's section on standards reads: strengthen the linkage between national food safety standards, local standards and enterprise standards, and gradually improve the food safety standards system; encourage enterprises to carry out deep processing based on distinctive food-as-medicine materials; and give dedicated subsidies to pharmaceutical enterprises whose R&D spending reaches or exceeds the national average.

The wider backdrop: the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and seven other departments issued the "Implementation Plan for High-Quality Development of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Industry (2026–2030)," which states that by 2030 a system for coordinated development across the entire TCM industry chain will have taken initial shape, with stronger, stable supply capacity for key TCM raw materials and improved digital and green standards.

The state is pushing a "system." For individual companies, that translates into standard documents, one after another.

An example is close at hand. From 13 to 15 October, the 2026 Shenzhen Health Ingredients and Food Ingredients Exhibition was held at the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center (Bao'an). The plant extract section brought together ginseng, lingzhi (reishi), huangjing (polygonatum), white kidney bean, suanzaoren (jujube seed) and mulberry leaf, aimed at Lingnan's Chinese-style wellness consumption.

When you visit a trade show, beyond price and minimum order quantity, ask one more question: "How did you set your enterprise standard?" That question is more useful than another quotation sheet.

Promotion language: when it is hot, hold back more

The proposal's third recommendation is titled "Taking multiple measures to strengthen scientific publicity for food-as-medicine materials." It mentions advancing the formulation and application of local food safety standards, improving dietary guidance, and correctly guiding consumers' scientific understanding of food-as-medicine products.

The word "scientific" sits in front of "publicity." That position is worth considering.

Product detail pages, livestream scripts and promotional materials are the three places where this category most easily runs into trouble. If you make ordinary food, speak as ordinary food; if you make health food, stay within the scope on your approval document. The hotter the category, the more restraint is required — this is the precondition for lasting in it.

What it means for operators

Three things, in the end.

The logic of product selection has to change. In the past, choosing food-as-medicine raw materials meant asking whether they sold well and whether the story was compelling. Next, it means asking whether they have a traceable consumption history and a stable origin and testing standard. Categories that can be written into standards and catalogues are the ones that can stay on the shelf long term.

The experience side is worth rebuilding. The PAKONTONG Herbal Tea & Coffee store at City Balcony, Zhuhai, follows this approach: by day it serves freshly brewed herbal tea, new Chinese-style coffee (with chenpi, guihua and longjing added to coffee) and Chinese whole-leaf tea; at night it switches to herbal craft brews and herbal cocktails. Herbs are no longer just a box of raw material on a shelf, but something you can sit down and finish a cup of.

Beyond the shelf, there are two other legs. The PAKONTONG Twenty-Four Herbs Herbal Tea gift box series comes in individual small tins in gift-box form, sold on JD.com; on the franchise side, it offers threefold support — offline experience stores, e-commerce specialty stores and private-domain mini-programs — with QR-code ordering, membership and orders all kept in its own pool. Raw materials, stores and online: whoever connects the three segments is less likely to be capsized by a single traffic fluctuation.

The proposal is a recommendation, not a document, and there is still distance between recommendation and implementation. But the fact that it writes the term "food-as-medicine materials supply chain" into public text shows the sector is being treated as a serious matter.

One sentence worth taking away: the next threshold for this industry is not in the formula — it is in the file.