ARA is an essential nutrient for infant development, and it is of particularly important significance for the improvement of infants’ central nervous system and retinal nerve function. ARA is a natural component in breast milk. For infants who are not breastfed, supplementing formula milk powder with ARA in a specific proportion is particularly important to ensure their nutritional needs and growth and development. This is because the conversion rate of ARA in infants’ bodies is very low, and they cannot synthesize enough ARA, so they must obtain it from their diet. In view of the special role of ARA for infants, many authoritative international institutions have clearly recommended adding ARA to infant formula. In 1994, China’s Ministry of Health officially approved the addition of ARA to infant food, providing a theoretical and factual basis for the application of ARA. By the end of 2001, nearly 100 countries had approved the addition of ARA to infant food.

The application of ARA in infant food is mainly in infant formula milk powder. Currently, there are two processes for adding ARA to formula milk powder: dry addition and wet addition. The dry addition process is simple but has very strict requirements on raw materials, and it is usually adopted by foreign enterprises. The dry addition process first mixes ARA powder with other powders evenly through physical methods to directly produce formula milk powder. The advantage of this method is that the materials do not undergo heat treatment, resulting in less loss of nutrients, while the disadvantage is that there may be uneven mixing of materials. The wet process, on the other hand, first dissolves ARA powder in milk, stirs it evenly, and then undergoes processes such as homogenization and spray drying to produce formula milk powder.