AsianScientist (Oct. 1, 2015) – Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group (Yili Group), the largest dairy producer in China and one of the top ten dairy producers in the world, has signed a research agreement with Cornell University. The agreement is expected to be the first of many between the two institutions, considered to be among the world’s leaders in food and dairy technology.
“The Cornell-Yili partnership defines the type of public-private partnerships that are needed to increase research to create a thriving global agricultural economy and provide high-quality food products for a world that is predicted to soon reach 9 billion people,” said Martin Wiedmann, the Gellert Family Professor in Food Safety in the Department of Food Science.
“A specific benefit for Cornell and our students will be that international public-private partnerships like this will enable us to gain insights into global food-related challenges and opportunities.”
Cornell and Yili began exploring the idea of collaboration in 2014 and signed a memorandum of understanding the following April. That agreement calls for the partners to develop research programs that increase dairy product innovation and quality assurance, covering a range of advances from farm technology to milk processing and the creation of value-added dairy products.
Under the terms of the research agreement, Yili Group will provide funding for Cornell to develop a novel cheese product aimed at the Chinese market. Carmen Moraru, an associate professor of food science, is leading the project.
“They want to develop a new cheese product, made of milk components and ingredients which Asian consumers are more used to, such as soy proteins,” Moraru said. “There are some technical challenges that we’re going to try to solve for them, using our knowledge of proteins and texturization.”
Yili Group is based in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China. The group has established several high-profile international collaborations in the past two years.
“Through solid collaboration between Cornell and Yili Group, both institutions will learn a lot from each other, and together grow as the world’s major powerhouses in their respected fields of expertise,” said Yang Jiwu, general manager of Yili Innovation Center.
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Source: Cornell University.
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