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Large and medium-sized chemical companies and pharmaceutical companies produce vitamins worldwide. DSM, a Dutch firm that purchased the Roche vitamin business in 2002, is the world leader and the most diversified producer of vitamins, followed by BASF, a company that recently boosted its vitamin production capacity and expanded through acquisitions.
In recent years, strong price pressure from Chinese vitamin producers, combined with costly punitive antitrust awards against the leading vitamin manufacturers, triggered rearrangements of the vitamin industry. The most significant change was the sale of Roche's vitamin division to DSM Nutritional Products. Roche was regarded as the unquestionable leader of the vitamin industry. Other important changes included the acquisition of the vitamin unit of Takeda by BASF; the breakup of Rhône-Poulenc, which initiated the formation of Adisseo, which then became a new substantial player in the vitamin business; and the exit of several large chemical companies from vitamin manufacturing activity, including Eastman Chemical, Degussa, Merck and Eisai. Also, large vitamin C and E manufacturing operations in the United States were closed by DSM, BASF and Lonza, and transferred to more efficient, newly built European and Asian factories. To deal with Chinese competition, several joint ventures were established between leading Western companies and Chinese vitamin manufacturers. Leading Western vitamin manufacturers that are now operating in China include DSM, BASF and Lonza.
These changes and the disappearance of several former vitamin producers were generated by the emergence of Chinese and Indian competition offering low-priced vitamins that resulted in a severe reduction of the market value for most vitamins. China is now the largest producer of the leading vitamin product, selling an estimated 60-70% of the world supply of vitamin C. However, vitamin production in China is fragmented. With a few exceptions, most Chinese vitamin producers are small or medium-sized operations. Similarly, the vitamin industry in India consists of many small producers, and their products are rarely sold in the United States or in Europe. One exception is Wockhardt Ltd. of India, which became a significant supplier of vitamin B 12 to the U.S. and Western European markets. In 2004, Wockhardt increased its annual production capacity of vitamin B 12 from 1.7 to 3.5 metric tons.
In 2003, the global market for vitamins was valued at approximately $2.3 billion. Sales of vitamins A, C and E accounted for approximately 64% by value and 72% by volume of global sales. The smaller-volume vitamins B 1 , B 2 , B 3 , B 5 , B 6 and B 12 each have sales of $67-157 million. These values represent sales of bulk vitamins and do not include vitamin derivatives.
Between 2004 and 2008, only moderate increases are expected for vitamin demand in the feed supplement and food industries. The average annual growth rate is forecast to be 1.5-2.0%.
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