# restaurant safety

Who Controls Your Appetite? Inside China’s Billion‑Yuan Market for Savoury ‘Aroma Boosters’

Savoury flavour concentrates — known locally by names such as “piaoxiangji” or “one‑drop fragrance” — are a pervasive but poorly regulated part of China’s food system. Widely used across processed foods and restaurants, the industry is large and fragmented, with weak quantitative limits, incomplete testing standards and enforcement gaps that raise safety and trust concerns.