Food additives have greatly promoted the development of the food industry and are known as the soul of the modern food industry. This is mainly because it brings many benefits to the food industry. Its main functions are roughly as follows:

　　prevent spoilage

　　For example, preservatives can prevent food spoilage caused by microorganisms, prolong the shelf life of food, and also prevent food poisoning caused by microbial contamination. Another example: Antioxidants can prevent or delay the oxidative deterioration of food, so as to provide food stability and shelf life, and also prevent the formation of potentially harmful oil and fat auto-oxidative substances. In addition, it can also be used to prevent the enzymatic and non-enzymatic browning of food, especially fruits and vegetables. These are of certain significance for the preservation of food.

　　improve the senses

　　Improve food sensory properties

　　Appropriate use of colorants, color-preserving agents, bleaching agents, edible flavorings, emulsifiers, thickeners and other food additives can significantly improve the sensory quality of food and meet people's different needs.

　　maintain nutrition

　　Keep improving nutritional value

　　Appropriately adding some food nutritional fortifiers belonging to the natural nutrition range during food processing can greatly improve the nutritional value of food, which is of great significance to prevent malnutrition and nutritional deficiencies, promote nutritional balance, and improve people's health.

　　easy supply

　　Increase variety and convenience

　　There are more than 20,000 kinds of food on the market for consumers to choose from. Although most of these foods are produced through certain packaging and different processing methods, in the production process, some products with complete color, aroma and taste are mostly different. To a certain extent, coloring, flavoring, flavoring and other food additives are added. It is these numerous foods, especially the supply of convenience foods, that bring great convenience to people's life and work.

　　easy to process

　　convenience food processing

　　The use of defoamers, filter aids, stabilizers and coagulants, etc. in food processing can benefit food processing operations. For example, mechanization and automation of tofu production can be facilitated when using glucono delta lactone as a tofu coagulant.

　　other

　　other special needs

　　Food should meet the different needs of people as much as possible. For example, people with diabetes who cannot eat sugar can make sugar-free food supplies with non-nutritive sweeteners or low-calorie sweeteners such as sucralose or aspartame.

　　There are also companies that formulate their own additive standards. The leading companies in the industry are not allowed to add preservatives, sodium cyclamate, pigments, and fragrances.