By continuous innovations, Yili Group has made the most astounding accomplishments. It has won many honors related to its superior technical competence, such as: country technical center , country laboratory, country patents pilot-test enterprise, Inner Mongolia innovative enterprise , Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region corporate lab, dairy R&D center for agricultural produce processing project by the Ministry of Agriculture, country innovative pilot-test enterprise.

Yili Group has established a three-level research system after years of development. The first level in the R&D system is the producer-university-researcher collaborative platform. This level is composed of the National Dairy Product Processing Technology R&D Sub Center, the Dairy Product Test Institute of the National Dairy Product Test Center, the Inner Mongolia Institute of Dairy Industry, the Key Corporate Lab in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Yili Group Post-doctorate Research Station and the Dairy Patent Information Platform of Yili Group. The collaboration between Yili Group and the above research institutes has helped to solve the common problems in the dairy industry and has promoted the development of the dairy industry in China and Inner Mongolia.

The second level in the R&D system is the Group’s Technical Center. It aims to develop the promising products and technology by making use of and integrating both local and overseas technical resources. In this way the technical capacity of Yili Group will ensure its leading position both in China and around the world.

The third level in the R&D system is the R&D divisions in the business units. These R&D divisions develop products according to special consumers’ needs of different groups. Their main goal is to satisfy the needs of the consumers and launch new products so as to ensure competitive advantages of the products both produced and sold by these business units.

Yili Group has 5 medium-sized trial production labs, 1 Central Test Lab, 6 dairy test labs and 1 verification and calibration lab that are equipped with many advanced R&D and testing instruments.

Yili’s producer-university-researcher collaborative platform employs the best professionals in the field of dairy research from both local province and places outside Inner Mongolia, including 14 professors/researchers, 2 associate professors/deputy researchers, 1 post doctorate, 10 doctoral candidates, 20 master candidates, 12 senior technicians, 5 intermediate technicians and 27 other auxiliary employees. Between 2004 and 2007, Yili Group trained 8 doctoral candidates and 14 master candidates.

A R&D team with comprehensive knowledge and leading techniques has been established. There are 510 people in the Group’s Technical Center and R&D divisions of different departments. Among them, 5 are specialists and technicians with PhD degrees and 410 are technicians with senior or intermediate academic titles. Training programs are arranged for the technicians both overseas and at home in various channels. To strengthen R&D capability, Yili Group sends the principal technicians and heads of R&D to United States, Germany, France, New Zealand, Japan and Korea to attend academic conferences, visit famous dairy research organs, and get to know and learn the global leading techniques and quality management procedures. At the same time, dozens of oversea specialists are also invited to Yili Group for academic and technical exchanges.

By the end of 2007, Yili Group had already taken on 13 national projects, launched more than 9 projects through national research institutions, and had seen several hundred innovations inside Yili. Yili Group has also been involved in more than 14 national dairy industry standard revisions. 112 inventions & practical patents and 608 design patents have been registered for patents and 85 articles have been published. Yili participated in compiling the Study of Inner Mongolia’s 11th Five-year Plan in Dairy Industry and the Practical Guidebook for Dairy Engineers.

Yili Group has launched more than 1000 products into market, and more than 100 new products are developed annually to meet the new needs of consumers over the last few years. This is a result of Yili’s strong R&D. Always being the first to launch new products meeting potential needs of consumers, Yili leads the industry growth and keeps its leading position in liquid milk, ice cream, milk powder and yoghurt categories. In addition, Yili has created the free-range & collective milking, cowshed community, pasture park and other models of dairy farm development. Thus it is greatly promoting the development of the Chinese dairy-farm industry.

Yili Group has won numerous awards, prizes and honors of all kinds. For instance, in 2007: (1) Yili Shuhua Milk won the Innovative & Recommendation Prize for Liquid Milk at the first session of the Dairy Conference held in Netherlands; (2) the application of LGG Probiotics Yogurt in dairy products won the first prize of Scientific & Technological Progress in Hohhot; (3) the development of the organic industrial chain, low-lactose milk powder, high-condensing-rate & low-lactose milk production techniques and the testing technology that identifies adulterated raw milk won different levels of awards and prizes in the dairy industry; (4) the multi-vitamin and high-calcium powder, Satine milk powder and Shuhua milk won the Innovative Award by the Dairy Development Association in West China; and (5) the Research in Producing & Processing the Low-lactose Dairy Products was appraised as Top 10 Sci-tech Development in Inner Mongolia for 2007.