Currently, the global big health industry has entered a new stage of refinement and functionalization. Boasting the core advantages of safety, high efficiency and rich nutrition, rare natural plant raw materials have become a key trend in the food, beauty and health care sectors. Among them, two classic medicinal and edible homologous categories – Sea buckthorn and Goji berry (Wolf berry) – continue to lead the market. Driven by technological upgrading, the industry has evolved from traditional fresh fruit raw materials to high-value deep-processed products including Sea Buckthorn Extract, Sea buckthorn oil and Black Goji Berry. This transformation has fueled the industrial upgrading from extensive planting to high-end intensive processing and full industrial chain value enhancement, unlocking a new blue ocean of a hundred-billion-level industry.
Widely recognized as a "super functional food" worldwide, sea buckthorn contains more than 400 nutrients and over 190 bioactive substances, including premium nutrients such as vitamins, flavonoids and unsaturated fatty acids, and is highly acknowledged in the market for its antioxidant and nourishing conditioning effects. According to the latest 2026 industry data, the global sea buckthorn market is witnessing robust growth. It is projected to grow steadily from USD 419 million in 2025 to over USD 1.036 billion by 2034, with a compound annual growth rate exceeding 10%. Domestically, China’s sea buckthorn industry has entered a high-quality development cycle, with the annual market scale expected to reach 13.86 billion yuan. Deep-processed products register a far-leading output value growth rate, completely breaking the single development model of traditional raw material sales.
Deep-processed products serve as the core growth engine for the segmented industrial track. Adopting advanced technologies such as low-temperature extraction and fresh-lock purification, Sea Buckthorn Extract effectively retains the core active ingredients of sea buckthorn with higher purity and stronger adaptability. It is widely applied in diverse fields including functional foods, dietary supplements, beauty and skincare, and biomedicine, solving long-standing industrial pain points such as difficult fresh fruit storage, severe nutrient loss and limited application scenarios. As a high-end core product of the sea buckthorn industrial chain, Sea buckthorn oil is a popular raw material for high-end skincare products and health supplements due to its excellent skin repair and internal conditioning effects. At present, the market scale of China’s high-end sea buckthorn oil segment has exceeded 2 billion yuan, making it a core category for high-value industrial monetization.
The refined upgrading of the goji berry industry has synchronized with the booming sea buckthorn sector. While conventional Goji berry (Wolf berry) has achieved widespread market popularity, Black Goji Berry with higher scarcity and richer nutrients has emerged as a new favorite in high-end health preservation consumption. Compared with ordinary goji berries, black goji berries are rich in high-content anthocyanins, delivering superior effects in anti-oxidation, anti-aging and physical conditioning, which perfectly caters to the current consumer demand for precise health preservation and light luxury maintenance. In recent years, the goji berry industry has abandoned the extensive and scattered planting model and shifted toward standardized, large-scale and clustered development. The continuous improvement of high-quality raw material supply capacity has laid a solid foundation for deep-processed product research and development and brand building.
Shifts in consumer trends act as the core driving force for the boom of these categories. With the comprehensive upgrade of public health awareness, consumers have abandoned the traditional single dietary supplementation model and prefer natural, additive-free and high-activity functional deep-processed products. From offline supermarkets and health stores to online e-commerce and live-streaming sales, products such as sea buckthorn puree, sea buckthorn oil, black goji berry extract and compound goji berry extract have achieved rising sales. Meanwhile, favored for their natural and safe properties, these products are increasingly popular in overseas markets with growing export volume annually, becoming core Chinese characteristic functional raw materials for global market expansion.
Industry analysts point out that 2026 will be a crucial year for the quality and efficiency improvement of the sea buckthorn and goji berry industries. Future industrial competition will no longer focus on raw material output, but center on four core dimensions: organic quality, extraction technology, formula innovation and full-link traceability. Leading enterprises will continue to focus on core technologies including improved variety cultivation, low-temperature deep processing and precise extraction of active ingredients, continuously expand product application boundaries, and elevate sea buckthorn and black goji berry series products from domestic health preservation ingredients to benchmark natural raw materials in the global big health industry.
With continuous technological iteration, expanding consumption scenarios and increasing market recognition, the deep-processing track of sea buckthorn and goji berry will keep releasing growth potential, further expanding the hundred-billion-level market and becoming a core force driving the high-quality development of China’s functional health industry.
