AMSTERDAM, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese dairy giant Yili Group has once again emerged as a standout leader at the 2025 World Dairy Innovation Awards, securing top honors in four key categories: Intolerance-friendly innovation, Ice Cream, Artisan dairy, and CSR/sustainability initiative.
This marks the sixth consecutive year that Yili has received major recognition at the prestigious international event, reaffirming its position as a global frontrunner in dairy innovation.
At Wednesday's award ceremony, held during the 2025 Global Dairy Congress that concluded on Thursday, the company also received six additional commendations across various categories.
The Global Dairy Congress is one of the most influential events in the international dairy industry, bringing together professionals from across the globe to explore market trends, policy changes, and innovation.
Its annual World Dairy Innovation Awards are among the most respected honors in the field, with this year's competitions attracting 177 entries across 20 categories.
Yili's continued success highlights the growing global influence of Chinese dairy companies. Global Dairy Congress Chairman Richard Hall has told Xinhua that when Yili first won the awards years ago, people didn't quite understand "the scale of innovation that was going on in China."
"Now we do, so Yili is winning lots of awards and teaching the rest of us what Chinese imagination and invention can create for all of us," said Hall.
Ignatius Man-Yau Szeto, assistant president of Yili Group, emphasized that the awards are more than accolades, they are a call to further action.
"This recognition motivates us to keep increasing our investment in research and development," he said to Xinhua. "Innovation is our foundation, and we strive to meet diverse consumer needs by building a global innovation network and advancing nutrition research across all life stages."
Yili's long-term global R&D strategy has been key to its success. The company has established 15 innovation centers across Asia, Europe, and Oceania, and leads China's only national-level dairy innovation center.
It maintains close collaborations with top global institutions, including Wageningen University in the Netherlands and Lincoln University in New Zealand, as well as Chinese research powerhouses like Peking University and Jiangnan University.
Eleven years ago, Yili established its Innovation Center Europe in the Netherlands. Its deep partnerships with leading research institutes such as Wageningen University have helped build a dynamic ecosystem that integrates research, industry, and education, fueling product innovation for global markets.
According to Szeto, this collaboration reflects a "puzzle-piece complementarity" between Europe and China. Europe, with its rich research tradition and dense concentration of talent and institutions, offers a fertile ground for breakthroughs. Meanwhile, China brings vast consumer demand, market diversity, and advanced digital capabilities to scale those innovations.
A prime example is Yili's joint research on breast milk with Wageningen University and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour. This collaboration has led to 28 patents and directly contributed to the development of Yili's Jinlingguan infant formula range, including the latest Zhenhu Platinum, now fully launched in Hong Kong.
Beyond infant nutrition, Yili is also advancing research in cheese, probiotics, encapsulated calcium, sugar reduction, food safety, and artificial intelligence, often in cooperation with European partners, to bring high-tech solutions to the consumer market.
"It's not just about winning; it's about learning from global excellence and finding inspiration for our own innovation journey," he said, reflecting on Yili's winning the awards at the Global Dairy Congress.
During the congress, Yili also shared its experience in Chinese dairy innovation, hoping to attract more international collaboration and contribute to a more open, cooperative global innovation ecosystem, he said.
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