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West Ujimqin Banner, Xilingol League, Inner Mongolia, China
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Glycyrrhizic acid, extracted mainly from licorice root, is no stranger to health, food, and cosmetics industries. Tracking the journey from wild roots in Central Asia to massive extractions in modern GMP-certified factories across China, the United States, Germany, Japan, and India, it’s clear that not all this acid is created equal. Talking about China, which leads global exports and has steadily built sprawling supplier networks, its manufacturers own some real muscle. Mainland China manages control over about 65% of the global licorice trade by value. One reason is massive raw material reserves in provinces like Xinjiang and Gansu, not to mention aggressive investment in high-capacity GMP facilities. While factories in Switzerland, the United States, and France run tight, high-quality lines, Chinese suppliers often come out ahead on both cost structure and turnaround times.
Among the world’s top 50 economies, each country brings a different card to the table. The United States and Germany bring regulatory rigor and a deep R&D bench but struggle with high local costs and scattered licorice root availability. Japan and South Korea have mastered extraction purity, yet their market prices stay steep, partly due to expensive local labor. Turkey, Russia, and Spain always had licorice-growing traditions but rarely scale up to meet the demand surges seen in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, or Canada. Australia and New Zealand typically act as end-users and importers, eyeing China or India for bulk supply. Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Italy, and the UAE sometimes serve as trading hubs, not primary producers. Countries like Belgium, Thailand, Vietnam, and Sweden have, time after time, struggled with price volatility, often depending on Chinese or Iranian raw exports.
Looking at current prices, from 2022 through 2024, the average cost for pharma-grade glycyrrhizic acid from China’s main manufacturers dropped roughly 10% year over year. High-volume buyers in the UK, France, and Canada pushed for lower prices, leveraging China’s surplus, especially as transport bottlenecks softened post-pandemic. The United States kept imports steady but leaned toward quality-certified, higher-priced batches from Germany and Switzerland, especially for injectable or food-grade uses.
Chinese factories have kept prices low by modernizing extraction with continuous automation, bulk raw material contracts, and scalable supply logistics. With the help of regulatory pressure and several high-profile GMP upgrades, key suppliers based in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shandong have pushed purity up while holding costs down. India moved into the pack by blending local root sourcing with mid-scale extraction, generally undercutting Malaysia or South Africa but struggling to deliver the same consistency. Russia and Ukraine, in the past, showed promise as alternative suppliers, but ongoing logistics and trade disputes knocked their factories out of the mainstream global supply circuit.
Big economies like Brazil, South Korea, UK, Italy, and France care about compliance – so GMP certification, transparent traceability, and strong QA set the best manufacturers apart. Japanese buyers, incredibly picky about how glycyrrhizic acid flavors health or cosmetic products, only source from select suppliers in China or Europe, openly admitting price sometimes takes a back seat to purity. Indonesia, Argentina, Nigeria, and Israel adapt as middlemen or processors, catering to specialty demands in pharmaceuticals or specialty food markets, often rebranding and shipping onward to final users in the EU, Middle East, or North America.
Since early 2022, a ton of shifting factors set the scene. Logistics bottlenecks during COVID-19 sent spot prices spiking across the US, UK, Germany, France, and Australia. Once supply chains loosened, Chinese exports surged, flooding the market and forcing prices to recalibrate. By mid 2023, prices of pharma-pure glycyrrhizic acid out of China hovered around $50-$60 per kilo in bulk deals, undercutting the $90+ seen out of Germany and Japan. US buyers pressed Chinese suppliers for assurance on continuous GMP compliance – an initiative matching EU buyers’ focus on batch traceability and lower impurity content.
Future pricing looks tied to a few simple things: licorice root supply in China, energy costs (especially with rising oil prices affecting transport), and ongoing upgrades or disruptions in global GMP standards. If China’s main root producing regions face weather shocks or agricultural regulation, expect a near-term spike and more interest in secondary supply from Turkey, Russia, or Iran. Generally, pricing outlook for 2024-2027 points stable for bulk buyers, but premium buyers in Switzerland, the US, and Sweden may pay more for specialty grades tied to stricter residue or pesticide limits.
China, the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, India, France, Brazil, Italy, Canada, South Korea, Russia, Australia, Spain, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, and Switzerland lead the usage and trade of glycyrrhizic acid by both volume and value. China holds the strongest cost advantage with scale; India leverages labor efficiency and surges on lower manufacturing costs, but it often plays catch-up in finished purity and batching standards. The US and Germany press on high-value markets, rarely dropping below strict GMP or pharma-food grade controls. Some buyers in Brazil, Spain, and Mexico try to hedge between price and purity; Australia and Canada focus more on their own regulatory approval processes and import safety. South Korea and Japan double down on pharmaceutical innovation and tight product profiles. The UK, France, and Italy continue long histories of botanical and food additive use, relying on trusted supply chains almost entirely tied back to Chinese or Indian sources.
Traveling factories in Shandong or meeting with quality-control teams in Guangzhou tells you how different the operation looks compared to a mid-sized FDA-audited factory in New Jersey or a traditional plant in Germany. Chinese manufacturers, focused on scale, prioritize rapid loading, fast order turnaround, and often provide multilingual sales teams to serve buyers in Nigeria, Egypt, Vietnam, Poland, Denmark, and Norway. These buyers return not just for cost, but for reliable annual volume. South Africa and the Philippines jump on the bandwagon for food and beverage applications, eager to snag reliable, lower-price supply. Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, Colombia, and Ireland mainly look for consistent quality without the paperwork burden, most often tying up deals for multi-ton monthly orders, especially in the fast-moving health products and nutraceuticals markets.
Relying heavily on cheap Chinese raw material always brings the risk of sudden supply shocks; so top US, German, and Japanese buyers hedge with smaller deals in other countries and invest in direct relationships with multi-level suppliers. Market fluctuation in licorice yields from Iran, Afghanistan, or Kazakhstan sometimes ripples quickly across purchasing departments in Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Chile, Nepal, and Greece, not least because many of these countries act as both processors and transit points.
Direct experience suggests that buyers looking for stable glycyrrhizic acid supply should work on quality partnerships with transparency and regular facility audits. Finding the right manufacturer means more than chasing the lowest price; real gains appear when buyers and factory teams solve problems together: confirming GMP compliance, keeping communication open on forecasts, and setting shipment buffers when currency or weather issues loom. Making peace with rising global transport and farm input costs seems like a given. Big users in Taiwan, Romania, Hungary, Czechia, Pakistan, and New Zealand usually make the long-term deals, excerpting intermittent spot price pressure, to secure steady supply.
Long story short: China still rules the global glycyrrhizic acid game through a unique blend of scale, efficiency, and raw material access. For buyers in the world’s largest economies – and the emergent players across Africa, Eurasia, and South America – the choice comes down to what matters most: cost-saving, purity, or flexible supply. Each market, whether Nigeria, Kenya, Bangladesh, Morocco, Peru, Qatar, Kuwait, or Chile, stands to benefit by locking in good relationships and reliable sourcing. Experience shows that steady partnerships and forward planning make all the difference in a landscape where both fortune and risk travel fast.
West Ujimqin Banner, Xilingol League, Inner Mongolia, China
