Industry standard released for medicinal beverages

Guangzhou Wanglaoji Great Health Industry Corp, affiliated with Chinese pharmaceutical maker Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group，announced the establishment of the world's first industry standard on "liangcha" beverage products, which originate from a traditional Chinese medicine that is believed to have cooling properties.

The company released the standard on Thursday during the Fortune GlobalTech Forum, which lasted from Thursday to Friday.

Wanglaoji said the standard was created on a basis of solid discussion and consultation among the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies; industry experts; SGS, an international inspection, verification, testing and certification company; and herbal beverage producers and traders from more than 10 countries and regions.

The standard has taken into consideration the food safety standards of many countries, as well as combined traditional Chinese medicine requirements, to get support from more than 100 board members of the WFCMS from all over the world, the company said.

Yang Lufang, an expert with SGS, believes the standard is able to effectively guarantee the quality of liangcha products, and make the industrial production of herbal beverages more standardized to earn more international acceptance.

The company's trading network covers 60 countries and regions in the world. From January to September this year, Wang Laoji's herbal beverage exports reported an increase of 63.7 percent year-on-year, and it estimated for the whole year exports will increase 50 percent, a record high.