Recently, the National Health Commission released Announcement No.1 of 2026, officially adding gardenia oil to the catalogue of novel food ingredients. Gardenia, a plant with a dual tradition as food and medicine boasting over 2,000 years of application history, has reached a vital milestone for industrialization. Derived from gardenia fruit, a series of products including gardenia oil and gardenia yellow pigment combine oriental cultural heritage, clear regulatory endorsement and diverse application value, covering multiple sectors such as functional edible oils, natural colorants, as well as daily chemical flavors and fragrances. The collaborative development model of “oil-pigment-fragrance” delivers differentiated innovation ideas for China’s food raw material industry and is expected to drive the industrial breakthrough of domestic food-medicine dual-use raw materials.

Gardenia jasminoides is a traditional food-medicine dual-use resource in China, documented early in Compendium of Materia Medica. Its ripe fruit is included in China’s first catalogue of “substances traditionally used as both food and Chinese medicinal materials”, with a solid foundation of folk application. Gardenia fruit contains 20%25% oil, a level comparable to soybeans, providing inherent raw material conditions for large-scale oil extraction.

Gardenia oil is produced from dried ripe gardenia fruit via green processes such as physical cold pressing and supercritical CO₂ extraction, followed by refining procedures including degumming, deacidification, decolorization, deodorization and dewaxing. The finished product is a pale yellow to yellow oily liquid with an elegant, fresh floral and fruity aroma. In terms of fatty acid composition, gardenia oil is dominated by unsaturated fatty acids including oleic acid and linoleic acid, with oleic acid ≥20.0% and linoleic acid ≥45.0%. Its fatty acid profile aligns with modern consumers’ demand for healthy edible oils.

As stipulated in the novel food ingredient announcement, gardenia oil shall not be used in infant foods, and its food safety indicators shall comply with current national standards for vegetable oils in China. Beyond food applications, gardenia oil is also listed in the Catalogue of Cosmetic Raw Materials Already in Use. Its dual compliance for food and cosmetics further expands its industrial boundaries.

Developing Novel Functional Flavor Oils to Enrich the Matrix of Domestic Edible Oils

China’s edible oil market has long been dominated by soybean oil, rapeseed oil, olive oil, camellia oil and other varieties, while specialty flavor edible oils with indigenous cultural attributes remain relatively scarce. Featuring the cultural label of food-medicine dual-use, unique floral-fruity aroma and balanced unsaturated fatty acid composition, gardenia oil has emerged as a new contender in the high-end flavor oil track.

For edible applications, gardenia oil features a light texture compatible with diverse cooking and processing methods. It can be directly drizzled over salads and steamed dishes as a cold dressing to impart a distinctive oriental floral-fruity flavor. It can also be blended with sesame oil and camellia oil to formulate compound seasoning oils suited for light meals, Japanese cuisine and new Chinese-style dishes. Thanks to favorable processing stability, it can serve as a dedicated baking oil for pastries and desserts. Pilot commercialization of edible gardenia oil has been realized in regions such as Zhejiang, positioned around local origin, natural ingredients and traditional culture, attracting health-conscious consumers.

Different from bulk oilseeds, gardenia oil’s core competitiveness lies in its flavor value in addition to nutritional properties. Targeting high-end households, catering businesses and food processors, it fills the market gap of domestic woody specialty flavor oils.

Efficient By-Product Utilization: Gardenia Yellow Pigment Builds the “Oil + Pigment” Collaborative Development Model

The highlight of the gardenia industry lies in its circular economy model of multi-purpose utilization of a single fruit. After oil extraction from gardenia fruit, processing by-products such as pomace and aqueous extracts serve as premium raw materials for producing gardenia yellow pigment, enabling full value extraction of the raw material.

Gardenia yellow pigment is a water-soluble carotenoid with crocin and crocetin as its core active components. It is a mature, stable natural yellow colorant widely adopted in the food industry. Compared with many natural pigments, gardenia yellow pigment offers prominent advantages: it delivers a bright, warm golden hue well accepted by consumers; it is light- and heat-stable with consistent color across a broad pH range of 411; it features excellent water solubility suitable for aqueous systems such as beverages and dairy products. Multiple commercial grades including low-odor and acid-resistant variants are available to meet diverse manufacturing requirements.

It has broad downstream applications in snack foods such as candies, pastries and puffed foods; condiments including soy sauce and sauces; meat products, and instant grain and flour products. Amid the clean label consumption trend, gardenia yellow pigment, as a compliant natural colorant, is gradually replacing certain synthetic colorants. Collaborative development of the primary product gardenia oil and by-product gardenia yellow pigment effectively cuts overall production costs and improves the comprehensive economic value of gardenia fruit. This constitutes its core advantage differentiating gardenia industrial chains from many single-function raw materials.

Cross-Industry Expansion: A Natural Fragrance Carrier Connecting Food and Daily Chemical Sectors

With regulatory approval for both food and cosmetic applications, gardenia oil demonstrates cross-sector potential in flavors and fragrances. Boasting a soft inherent aroma, it can function as a fixative and aroma modifier to extend fragrance retention and enrich olfactory layers. Concrete and absolute extracts of gardenia blossom are precious raw materials for oriental floral fragrances.

Within cosmetic formulations, gardenia oil can be incorporated as a base oil in skincare recipes. It is also widely applied in scented candles, handmade soap, wash and care products, home fragrances and other daily chemical systems. Multiple domestic cosmetic formulas have completed raw material filings for gardenia oil, laying mature groundwork for industrial rollout. From dining tables to personal care and home fragrances, gardenia oil connects food, beauty and aroma sectors to further expand the commercial potential of gardenia raw materials.

Coexisting Industrial Opportunities and Practical Challenges

Policy liberalization has opened doors for gardenia oil, yet its industrialization still faces multiple practical hurdles. First, raw material supply. As a food-medicine dual-use crop, gardenia fruit yield, harvest season and quality directly impact oil yield and finished quality. Construction of large-scale, standardized planting bases underpins industrial expansion. Second, processing optimization. Cold pressing and supercritical extraction each carry respective merits and drawbacks. Continuous industry optimization of manufacturing processes is required to balance oil yield, flavor and cost. Meanwhile, post-treatment procedures such as degumming and deacidification must be refined to stabilize batch consistency. Third, market education remains incomplete. As an emerging edible oil, gardenia oil suffers from low consumer awareness, and downstream catering and food manufacturers lack accumulated experience in formula development. Fourth, regulations explicitly restrict gardenia oil from infant food applications. Enterprises must strictly control applicable population boundaries during product development.

In the long run, the complete gardenia industrial chain holds strong development potential. Gardenia oil penetrates the food market as a specialty edible oil; gardenia yellow pigment consolidates its market share for natural colorants; gardenia floral fragrances expand into daily chemical and aroma tracks. The integrated “oil-pigment-fragrance” model maximizes the economic value of gardenia fruit, forming a development benchmark for China’s indigenous food-medicine dual-use raw materials.

With the official implementation of the NHC novel food ingredient announcement, gardenia oil completes its transition from a traditional materia medica resource to a modern food raw material. Rooted in 2,000 years of Chinese medicinal and dietary culture, gardenia oil enjoys clear regulatory support, balanced fatty acid composition and highly recognizable oriental floral-fruity flavor. Processing by-products yield gardenia yellow pigment to realize circular resource utilization, while the ingredient extends into beauty and fragrance sectors.

Although improvements are still needed in raw material cultivation, processing technology and market education at this stage, gardenia oil undoubtedly injects new vitality into China’s domestic functional edible oil sector featuring food-medicine dual-use ingredients. With continuous investment from upstream and downstream enterprises in the future, this small gardenia fruit is poised to unlock greater industrial value across food, condiment, daily chemical and other sectors.

Disclaimer: This article is industry news compiled based on public regulatory and industrial data, and does not constitute any efficacy promotion. Enterprises using gardenia oil must strictly comply with relevant provisions specified in the national novel food ingredient announcement.