Yili Group's Zhang Yipeng: Initiating China's Dairy Industry "Golden Standard Era"

Ask AI · How Can Gold-Label Verification Help Boost the Global Competitiveness of China’s Dairy Industry?

China Economic News reporter Liu Wang, Beijing report

“All Yili people must protect our quality with the mindset of making products for loved ones.” At the “New Quality Consumption · Dual Uplift in Quality and Efficiency” 2026 China New Consumption Industry High-Quality Development Forum hosted by China Business News, Yili Group’s vice president Zhang Eipeng said this.

At this exchange, Zhang shared two good pieces of news: first, China’s dairy industry has bridged, in about twenty years, the gap of more than a hundred years with dairy-developed countries, and indicators such as the total plate count of Yili’s raw milk are far better than EU standards, achieving a landmark breakthrough; second, Yili has obtained Gold-Label Verification, officially ushering in China’s dairy industry’s “Gold-Label era.”

Top Tier in Global Dairy Products

What is “Gold-Label”? Zhang Eipeng explained that Gold-Label falls under a “dual-verification” system, which extracts and consolidates best practices from advanced global dairy indicators and quality management systems—including China’s standards, EU standards, Japan’s standards, U.S. standards, and Australia-New Zealand standards. It both evaluates the rigor of factory production processes and benchmarks product quality against globally advanced testing indicators. It is truly the “culmination” of consolidating global advanced dairy standards.

“Getting the Gold-Label proves you are a top-tier performer among global dairy products.” Zhang Eipeng said that Gold-Label verification runs through the entire industrial chain—from the upstream fresh milk and raw materials, to production and processing, and process control; then to warehousing, transportation, and final delivery—every link undergoes stringent inspections.

On the significance of Gold-Label, Zhang’s wording carried particular weight: “Real ‘Gold-Label’ quality is not about passively ‘meeting the standard,’ but about proactively ‘leading’.”

According to Zhang, over the years, Yili has actively thrown itself into the innovation path across the entire industrial chain, continuously advancing its innovation strategy. It has built 15 innovation centers worldwide, located across Europe, Oceania, Southeast Asia, and other regions. Focusing on key areas of international dairy R&D, it integrates domestic and overseas R&D resources, continuously overcomes technical bottlenecks across the entire industrial chain, and accelerates the transformation and application of technological achievements.

He gave a vivid example: lactoferrin. Lactoferrin, also known as “milk gold,” plays a significant role in enhancing human immunity. In the past, lactoferrin ingredients relied heavily on imports, and international prices once soared to more than RMB 20,000 per kilogram. To break foreign technology monopolies, Yili’s R&D team worked tirelessly on key breakthroughs, pioneering “directional extraction protection technology for lactoferrin.” This increased the retention rate of lactoferrin in shelf-stable pure milk from 10% to over 90%, enabling the company to break through technologically first and turning “milk gold” from scarce resources into widely accessible applications.

“How precious is lactoferrin? From 10 tons of milk, only 1 kilogram can be extracted.” Zhang Eipeng said, “In the past, we depended on imports; now, we control the core technology ourselves—we’re at the forefront of the world.”

To address lactose intolerance among Chinese consumers, Yili introduced lactose hydrolysis products, making innovation serve everyone’s health and daily life. To meet the nutrition needs of Chinese infants and young children, starting in 2003, Yili pioneered systematic research on Chinese human milk. It built the first “Chinese Human Milk Research Database.” To date, it has collected data at the million-level, completed arrangements for more than 290 invention patents in the field of human milk research, and successfully applied its top ten core formula patents to the Jinlingguan series products. This has not only delivered more professional and diversified nutrition solutions, but also driven iterative upgrades of infant formula powder, helping the industry move into a comprehensive nutrition era.

Protecting Quality with a System

At Yili Group, there is an extremely stringent quality management system. The group has established a “Three-All” quality management system—full participation, full process, and full coverage—covering every person, every step, and every factor that could affect quality. It has also built a three-tier food safety risk monitoring and prevention and control system: “Group—Business Unit—Factory.” Covering more than 80 inspection units, the total number of inspection items reaches over 1,000, far exceeding national requirements.

What is especially worth noting is Yili’s “three lines” for food safety management: based on national standards, it raises the level by 50% to form an “enterprise standard line”; then, on top of that, it raises the level by another 20% to build a more stringent “internal control standard line.” With added layers of reinforcement, it ensures product safety and health.

Zhang Eipeng shared a set of data. Taking the total plate count of raw milk as an example: the EU and the U.S. require that the total plate count in fresh milk be ≤100,000 CFU/mL. Yili uses nearly ten million tons of raw milk each year. In 2023, 2024, and 2025—continuously for three years—the average total plate count of raw milk used by Yili remained below 10,000 CFU/mL. This is a landmark achievement.

Such stringent safety standards are most directly reflected in the infant formula powder sector. In October 2025, Jinlingguan officially announced the implementation of its “Six-in-One” scientific research strategy for global human milk. Centered on six functional areas—absorption, immunity, gut health, brain development, bone development, and low allergenicity—it applied a series of core achievements to industrial practice. It refreshed the formulas of two Jinlingguan products, Jinlingguan Zhenhuo Bopui and Jinlingguan Zhenhuo, and launched three new single SKUs: Jinlingguan Zhenhuo Chunhui, Jinlingguan Zhenhuo Yuanchu, and Jinlingguan Senamuxi.

And relying on the “Six-in-One” scientific research strategy, Yili has built a “Five-Dimension Freshness Leading” system. From five dimensions—milk source, raw materials, milk powder, processing, and packaging—it has established advanced full-chain, fresh and viable quality management and control standards.

Digital Empowerment

In Yili’s “smart ranch,” the task of raising cattle has been completely changed by technology. Staff can achieve “one-click dairy farming.” From an office, they can use a mobile app to precisely understand each cow’s health status, milking volume, and other information, and grasp the status of every cow in real time. This enables precise feed allocation, ensuring the cows’ scientific diet and healthy care—raising healthy cows and producing high-quality milk.

In the production stage, Yili has built “smart factories.” By deeply applying technologies such as artificial intelligence, robots, and the Internet of Things, it enables efficient operation of automated production lines. Yili’s Modern Smart Health Valley has a production line with the fastest global speed, capable of bottling 40,000 packs per hour. Daily raw milk processing reaches 6,500 tons. The milk produced every day can sufficiently meet the daily milk consumption needs of cities with a population in the tens of millions.

For consumer insight, Yili promotes AI-driven consumer operations across the “whole territory, all scenarios, and the full life cycle.” It builds a big-data radar system covering more than 400 data sources, develops an intelligent insight system, and can complete market insights in an average of 3.5 days. Zhang Eipeng said, “We can not only precisely understand consumers’ health needs and provide a service experience with more warmth, continuously create healthy products that meet consumers’ diverse needs, but also enable online collaborative innovation with 150 million consumers.”

At the beginning of 2026, Yili held in Beijing the “Perceivable High-Quality Product Discovery Gathering,” where it focused on showcasing two major innovative products: Yousuanru Che Lemon and Jindian Fresh Pure Milk.

Among them, Yousuanru Che Lemon breaks through the traditional liquid beverage form. By adding real lemon pulp and peel particle ingredients, it creates a “chewy” experience. With its unique product positioning and excellent market performance, it was successfully selected as a standout new product in the 2025 Nielsen IQ BASES New Product Trend Label, becoming a phenomenon-level hit product in the youth market.

Jindian Fresh Pure Milk, meanwhile, precisely captures young consumers’ upgraded needs for “fresh and delicious.” Through three layers of processes—INF (steam-infiltration) sterilization in 0.09 seconds, oxygen reduction and freshness-locking, and RO membrane filtration—it achieves a breakthrough of “It’s delicious even without being chilled, and it’s fresh even at room temperature.” By balancing “short-shelf-life freshness” with “room-temperature convenience,” it injects strong momentum into the liquid milk market.

(Editor: Yu Haixia; Review: Sun Jizheng; Proofread: Yan Jingning)