30,000-ton food-grade glycine plant starts production in Junan county

Shandong Shinengde Biotechnology Co started production of a 30,000-ton-a-year food-grade glycine plant at the Junan county science and technology innovation demonstration park in Linyi, East China's Shandong province, on Oct 28.

The 270-million-yuan ($38 million) plant was built by Linyi Hongtai Chemical Co, a company that pioneered glycine production in Shandong. Using a clean cyclic process with solvent and by-product recovery systems, the plant refines glycine from industrial grade (98 percent purity) to food and pharmaceutical grade (99.9 percent), with the crystals never exposed to the outside environment during processing.

Glycine, a white crystalline powder, serves markets from seasonings, sake and fruit wine to health foods, medical injections and animal feed. Food-grade glycine carries 70 percent of the sweetness of sucrose and is used to soften flavor, inhibit microbes and extend shelf life. Shinengde products have been exported to the European Union, Russia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Southeast Asia.

"Building on our current capacity, a second-phase expansion will start within one to two years to further increase output and complete the product line," said Wang Wenjian, chairman of Shinengde and Hongtai Chemical.

More than 50 glycine producers and partners from across the country attended the opening. Li Shuzhen, general manager of Hebei Huayang Group, called the company a rising star in the industry.

The host park hosts 97 enterprises above designated size, including four national-level "little giant" specialized firms and 38 provincial specialized SMEs, with industrial output above 55 billion yuan ($7.75 billion) in 2025, or 72.3 percent of the county's total.

Editor：韩蒙蒙