At the World Dairy Innovation Awards, an annual event held during the Global Dairy Congress, the judging panel considered 222 entries from 25 countries across 20 categories. Yili was honored to win three awards, including “Best Dairy Drink” for Cute Star Rub Your Tummy dietary fiber yogurt drink, “Best Functional Dairy” for TOORAN Black Milk Powder and “Best Packaging Design” for SATINE X Palace Museum Product of Special Edition. Notably, Yili is the only award winner from Asia and also led with the most nominations and awards globally.
“The era of Industry 4.0 calls for dairy players to embrace digital technology in order to drive greater innovation. Dedicated to always putting our customers first, Yili has established online and offline ‘dual centers’ and achieved the ‘dual integration’ of informatization and digitalization, with the aim of better fulfilling consumers’ increasingly segmented needs around health and nutrition. Digital technology also empowers our partners to improve their efficiency and will ultimately help to provide even higher quality dairy products for consumers around the world,” said Dr. Yun.
Creating digital tools to foster the development of a smart dairy industry
As consumer needs become increasingly personalized and segmented, Yili has been vigorously developing a wide range of digital tools to stay ahead of the market. At present, the company has established its own “radar” to track consumers’ evolving demands and receive feedback around their experiences, as well as a series of platforms for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), compliance and standard managing platform, and Risk-assessment platform.
Based upon nearly two decades of research, Yili has become the first Chinese company that sets up its own breast milk database. Together in cooperation with Wageningen University & Research, Yili has applied the key research findings to its Jinlingguan infant formula.
Introducing digital transformations throughout industry chains
For Yili, achieving true digitalization means transforming the entire industry chain through the deployment of cutting-edge new Internet technologies and applications.
In the upper reaches of the industry chain, Yili actively promotes digital farming and is building smart pastures. By using Yili’s independently developed digital management system, pasture workers are able to keep real-time digital health records for every cow. In the middle of the industry chain, Yili has been accelerating the construction of “smart factories”. The company’s digital upgrading of supply chains has effectively improved their overall operating efficiency. Downstream, Yili has been vigorously promoting the concept of “new retail” to optimize consumer shopping experiences and achieve the full integration of online and offline channels.
Driving product innovation through “dual integration”
Yili integrates IT applications with the dairy industry, and the company uses big data to accurately understand consumer’s rapidly evolving needs. This helps to ensure that Yili’s product innovations are best placed to fully meet demand from its customers.
For example, after identifying that 80% of Asians have a lactose deficiency, Yili spent four years on product development to help address this issue for Asian consumers, pioneering the new Lactose Hydrolysis Technology (LHT) technology which paved the way for the production of Shuhua Lactose Free Milk.
Based upon extensive research and analysis through its database, Yili also discovered that yogurt products which can be stored for a longer period of time proved to be more popular with Chinese consumers. As a result, Yili decided to develop world-leading room-temperature yogurt manufacturing equipment and technology aimed at extending yogurt’s shelf life. In addition, Yili has used a lactic acid bacteria species, developed by the Agricultural University of Athens, to raise its yogurt products’ protein content 35% higher than the market average. What’s more, using its big data radar platform, Yili has collected and taken into consideration consumer recommendations around the rapid launch of its new AMBPOMIAL products. Since last year, Yili has been launching 1-2 new products under the AMBPOMIAL brand every month.
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