To investigate the current application status of food-medicine substances in commercially available prepackaged foods and the labeling characteristics of relevant information on food packaging.

From June to October 2025, label information of prepackaged foods containing food-medicine substances ingredients sold in the market was collected. The application situation of food-medicine substances and labeling characteristics were analyzed, and the relationships between the use of food-medicine substances and food categories as well as their combined applications were explored.

A total of 583 food label samples were found to contain 103 kinds of different food-medicine substances, covering 25 product categories. Among them, beverages, convenience foods and tea and related products accounted for 327 samples (56.1%). Minimalist-type products were totaled 295 (50.6%). The 10 most frequently used food-medicine substances were: babury wolfberry fruit, Chinese date, dried orange peel, Chinese hawthorn fruit, liquorice root, indian buead, common yam rhizome, mullberry fruit, Ma-yuen jobstears seed and honey.Further analysis was conducted on the top 10 food-medicine substances used in 8 major food categories (each containing great than or equal to 20 kinds of products), which revealed that babury wolfberry fruit was the most frequently used in both beverages and tea products, and these two categories showed high similarity in the use of other food-medicine substances. In convenience foods, common yam rhizome was the most commonly used; in dairy products, Chinese hawthorn fruit was the most frequent; in confectionery and fruit products, liquorice root was the most prevalent; and in potato-based and puffed snacks, bunge pricklyath pericarp was the most used. The 7 kinds of food-medicine substances—liquorice root, babury wolfberry fruit, indian buead, common yam rhizome, Chinese hawthorn fruit, dried orange peel and Chinese date—were used across at least 4 different food categories. Regarding combined usage, 8 two-item sets (e.g., Chinese hawthorn fruit, dried orange peel) and 4 three-item sets (e.g., common yam rhizome, Indian buead, lotus seed) were found to have strong or very strong associations. The added amounts of food-medicine substances were indicated on the labels of 300 products (51.5%), while geographical origin information of the food-medicine substances was provided on 46 products (7.9%). A total of 399 products (68.4%) used text or graphics to highlight food-medicine substances-related characteristics, such as labeling with terms like “food-medicine substances”or “homology of medicine and food”.

Food-medicine substances are widely used in prepackaged foods but with high concentration, mainly relying on a small number of commonly used materials and mainstream food categories. The scientific basis of combined application of food-medicine substances, product innovation level and standardization of labeling all need to be further improved.