Low-Temperature Fruit and Vegetable Processing: Current Status, Challenges, and Future Trends

The fresh fruit industry has long been caught in a cycle of oversupply, weak demand and falling prices, with significant price fluctuations and high inventory losses. At the same time, five major downstream sectors — modern tea drinks, bakery, healthy light meals, prepared foods, and functional foods — continue to expand. This has driven rapidly growing demand for standardized, high-quality fruit and vegetable ingredients for clean-label, simple formulations.

Against this backdrop, low-temperature processing of Fruits and vegetables, once a relatively niche segment, has attracted increasing attention and seen continued market growth. It is gradually becoming an important area of development in the food ingredient industry.

1. How Fruit and Vegetable Extraction Differs from Traditional Processing

Fruit and vegetable extraction is often confused with traditional fruit juice processing, but the two are fundamentally different. This distinction is also one of the key factors behind the growing segmentation of the industry and the widening gap in profitability.

Fruit and vegetable extraction starts with fresh fruits and vegetables and uses modern physical and biological processing technologies to produce standardized industrial ingredients, including Fruit Purees, fruit bases, concentrates, frozen fruit pieces, fruit and vegetable powders, and natural active extracts. These ingredients mainly serve B2B customers such as food service businesses and food manufacturers, providing an important supply-chain foundation for new product development.

Traditional processing, by contrast, relies heavily on high-temperature juicing and thermal concentration. With relatively low technical barriers and a high degree of product similarity, these processes can result in significant losses of the original flavor and nutrients of fruits and vegetables. Additional ingredients are often needed to adjust the taste, leaving these products mainly suited to the lower-end ingredient market, where margins are limited and competition is intense.

Growth opportunities in the industry are increasingly shifting toward low-temperature processing. Mainstream technologies include cold pressing, enzymatic extraction, high-pressure processing (HPP) cold pasteurization, and individually quick freezing (IQF). By avoiding high-temperature treatment throughout the process, these technologies help preserve the natural fruit aroma, vitamins, and dietary fiber of fresh produce, while offering lower losses, better freshness retention, and clean-label formulations. Frozen fruit bases widely used by modern tea shops and frozen avocado puree popular in healthy and light-meal businesses are examples of products made possible by low-temperature processing technologies.

2. Market Size and the Changing Supply-Demand Structure

In 2026, China’s fruit and vegetable extraction market is expected to exceed RMB 63 billion, with annual growth remaining at around 13%–15%. This is significantly faster than the traditional fresh fruit wholesale sector. However, clear differences have already emerged within the market.

The lower-end segment is highly competitive. More than 60% of processing plants in China still rely on traditional high-temperature cooking and concentration processes. With low equipment barriers and a large number of producers entering the market, these products often experience significant flavor loss during processing and may require added flavors to adjust the taste. As a result, many manufacturers have to compete mainly on low price and high volume, leaving limited room for profit.

At the higher end, demand for low-temperature extraction is outpacing supply. Fruit and vegetable ingredients produced using low-temperature freshness-retention technologies offer natural, high-quality characteristics and can command a 15%–25% price premium. They are increasingly favored by major tea chains, healthy and light-meal supply chains, and export customers. International companies are also entering the market. Germany-based Döhler, for example, recently established a subsidiary in Canada to focus on frozen fruit and vegetable ingredients and fruit puree bases in the Americas, seeking opportunities in the global B2B healthy-food supply chain.

3. Downstream Applications and Demand

The rapid growth of fruit and vegetable extraction is not happening by chance. It reflects the upgrading of the foodservice and health-food sectors, which is in turn pushing suppliers to improve and modernize their ingredient solutions. Five major downstream sectors are providing a strong foundation for long-term growth.

• Modern Tea Beverages — A Core Application Market

Fresh-fruit beverage shops have long faced loss rates of 20%–30%, as well as inconsistent flavor caused by seasonal differences, higher food-safety risks during summer, and difficulties in maintaining consistent quality. Low-temperature frozen fruit and vegetable bases can help address many of these challenges.

Frozen fruit and vegetable ingredients now account for more than 60% of raw material use among leading tea brands. Cold-processed mango and strawberry purees, as well as cold-processed lemon purees, have become common ingredients in tea shops.

• Bakery

As consumers increasingly look for healthier food choices, artificial colors and synthetic additives are gradually losing favor in the market. Natural fruit and vegetable powders, such as pumpkin and blueberry powders, together with peach and strawberry puree fillings, are widely used in European-style bread, cakes, and desserts. The growing share of clean-label bakery products is also driving steady demand for natural fruit and vegetable ingredients.

• Healthy and Light Meals — The Fastest-Growing Application Market

This has been one of the most important sources of new demand for fruit and vegetable extraction in recent years. As the market for fitness, weight management, and light meal replacement products continues to grow, demand for frozen avocado puree, vegetable bases, and blended fruit and vegetable purees is increasing rapidly. These ingredients are widely used in salad bowls, meal-replacement shakes, and ready-to-eat light meals, while the supply gap for high-quality, low-temperature processed fruit and vegetable ingredients continues to grow.

• Prepared Foods

Fruit and vegetable concentrated sauces and low-temperature vegetable bases are increasingly used in prepared light meals, ready-to-eat vegetable packs, and blended seasoning sauces. They can replace traditionally prepared sauces and seasonings, helping prepared foods achieve a more natural taste and simpler ingredient lists while meeting the growing demand for healthier everyday meals.

• Functional Meal-Replacement Foods

Blended fruit and vegetable powders and natural plant extracts, with their naturally high dietary fiber and vitamin content, are becoming important ingredients in powdered drinks and sports nutrition meal-replacement products. They also fit well with the growing consumer demand for more functional food products.

4. Key Development Paths and Main Industry Trends

• Clean Labels Becoming a Common Industry Standard

Consumers are paying increasing attention to food ingredient lists, and clean, simple formulations have become a basic expectation. For upstream suppliers, low-temperature fruit and vegetable ingredients made without added flavors, preservatives, or artificial colors are no longer simply an added selling point. They are increasingly becoming a basic requirement for downstream brands when selecting ingredients.

Compared with traditional heat-processed products that rely on additives to adjust flavor, naturally processed fruit and vegetable ingredients made using low-temperature technologies can offer better taste and quality while supporting a stable price premium. More tea, healthy-meal, and bakery brands are willing to pay for cleaner ingredients, which is also encouraging upstream manufacturers to upgrade their processes and move toward standardized, low-temperature and additive-free production.

• Greater Integration Between Growing Areas and Processing Facilities

One of the biggest challenges in traditional fresh fruit sales is the short harvest window, limited shelf life, and significant price fluctuations. This can easily lead to oversupply during harvest seasons and reduced profits. To address this, the model of combining growing bases with local processing facilities is becoming increasingly common.

Fresh fruits and vegetables can be sent directly to nearby processing facilities after harvesting, where they are made into standardized ingredients such as fruit purees and frozen fruit pieces. This extends the selling period, reduces exposure to fresh-fruit price competition, and significantly cuts product losses while helping stabilize returns for producing regions. It is becoming a widely used approach to improving efficiency and product value in China’s fruit and vegetable industry.

5. Current Challenges and Key Barriers

Despite the industry’s rapid growth, several challenges remain.

• Raw material costs are highly volatile. Fruit and vegetable prices are strongly affected by seasonal and weather conditions. Prices can fall sharply during bumper harvests and rise when production drops, making it difficult for processors to maintain stable margins.
• Smaller processing plants often lack advanced technologies. Many still rely on basic thermal concentration processes and do not have the equipment or technical capabilities needed for advanced production lines such as HPP or liquid-nitrogen freezing. This makes it difficult for them to meet the requirements of higher-end markets.
• Cold-chain costs remain high. Most low-temperature processed products require storage, transportation, and handling at around -18°C throughout the supply chain, resulting in significant cold-chain costs.
• Major customers have strict supplier requirements. Large brands often require comprehensive testing reports covering pesticide residues, microorganisms, heavy metals, and other indicators. For smaller processing plants, the cost of upgrading equipment and obtaining the necessary certifications can be a significant burden.

6. Future Trends in the Industry

As market demand continues to evolve and supply-chain standards become more demanding, the fruit and vegetable extraction industry is entering a period of structural upgrading. Five key trends are expected to shape its development:

• Greater adoption of low-temperature freshness-retention technologies: The share of traditional high-temperature concentration capacity is expected to gradually decline, supporting more standardized processing quality across industry.
• Closer cooperation between producing regions and processing facilities: More fresh fruits and vegetables will be processed locally into frozen purees and fruit and vegetable bases, making this integrated model increasingly common.
• Steady growth in demand driven by the healthy eating market: Ingredients extracted from avocados, berries, leafy greens, and other fruits and vegetables are expected to see growing demand.
• Greater substitution of imported ingredients with high-quality domestic fruit and vegetable ingredients, this can help reduce supply-chain costs for foodservice and food manufacturers in China.
• Faster development of processing for specialty fruit and vegetable varieties, ingredients made from less common varieties such as sea buckthorn, Rosa roxburghii, and raspberry are expected to see faster market growth than more conventional fruit and vegetable categories.

Conclusion

The opportunities in fruit and vegetable extraction are no longer simply about juicing and concentration. To establish a strong position in the future, deep-processing companies will need stable access to raw materials, mature low-temperature freshness-retention technologies, and production that meets clean-label requirements, while also being able to serve the B2B supply chains of modern tea, healthy and light meals, bakery, and other growing sectors.

As demand for healthier food and beverage products continues to grow, the fruit and vegetable processing industry is likely to see further opportunities for development.