Shownotes
In this Omni Talk Retail interview, recorded live from the Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit 2026 in Vienna, Chris Walton sits down with Chen Yiyi, Vice President of Mengniu Group, to discuss how one of China's leading dairy companies is navigating changing consumer expectations, health trends, and digital transformation.
Chen shares how Mengniu has grown into one of China's leading dairy companies, how changing consumer preferences are reshaping the industry, and why the company is investing in nutrition, healthy aging, and functional food products. He also discusses Mengniu's vision for personalized health solutions, the impact of GLP-1 and wellness trends, the role of digital traceability through its "One Product, One QR Code" initiative, and why AI and sustainability will be critical to the future of the global consumer goods industry.
Key Topics Covered:
• The evolution of China's dairy industry
• How Mengniu grew into a leading global dairy company
• Changing consumer attitudes toward dairy in China
• Mengniu's "Drink More, Drink Good, Drink Right" strategy
• Nutrition, healthy aging, and functional food innovation
• The impact of GLP-1 and health-conscious consumers
• Why food companies are becoming health solution providers
• The future of dairy and personalized nutrition
• Mengniu's "One Product, One QR Code" traceability initiative
• Using digital tools to improve transparency and consumer trust
• The role of AI in the future of consumer goods
• Sustainability priorities for global manufacturers
Special thanks to the the CGF Leadership Studio sponsored by Vusion for supporting Omni Talk Retail's coverage in Vienna.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcripts
Hello everyone, this is Omnitalk retailer, I'm Chris Walden and I'm coming to you once again from the Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit in Vienna, Austria from the CGF Leadership Studio sponsored by Vuzion.
Speaker A:Now joining me is Chen Yiyi, he's the Vice President of China's Mengnu Group.
Speaker A:Chen Yi, welcome to omnitalk.
Speaker B:Hello, good, I'm Chen Yi, Felix Chen from Hmong New group from China.
Speaker B:Very happy to be here attend the CGF Global Summit Vienna.
Speaker B:So I'm very happy and be honored to be the member of the cgf.
Speaker B:So I think cherish this opportunity to learn from the talents all over the world in this beautiful and best platform.
Speaker B:Integrated global talent, intelligence, best practice, a lot of the powerful thinking and learning.
Speaker B:And also we hope to use this platform to present some best practice in China, the dairy sector and food sector to show all the best practice in the industry evolution and share the future and share the value with the friends from the cgf.
Speaker A:Yeah, and for those back home particularly that aren't as familiar with what it is Mengnyu does.
Speaker A:Can you explain that?
Speaker B:Yeah, actually Mengnu is a quite young company.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:We start with a very humble beginning since 99, so during the last 27 years we achieved a big progress and great job.
Speaker B:So since end of last year we delivered roughly 10 billion euro.
Speaker B:The business scale fully cover the dairy category from the chilled milk ice cream, infant milk powder.
Speaker B:I think the business also not limited in mainland China also there's some very high exposure in Southeast Asia and some exposure in Australia and some country around the Middle East.
Speaker B:So it's quite exciting.
Speaker B:The result of course during the evolution of the company.
Speaker B:So we have a lot of partnership with some the investor also the industry, the friends also like the big organization like professional like cgf.
Speaker B:So a lot of powerful support we can get.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So basically so essentially very rooted in dairy production and manufacturing overall.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Okay, so I'm curious, so you know what, how do you view the Consumer Goods Forum CGF from the perspective of a Chinese manufacturer?
Speaker A:What is it that you bring to the table in your organization to the Consumer Goods Forum?
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Talking about consumer goods, I think especially in the Western society already built a quite success brand like Nestle, Coca Cola, the retail brand like Tesco Carrefour.
Speaker B:Actually the China the total evolution is quite short.
Speaker B:Just the last 40 years we start from 0 to 11 to 10, 10, 200.
Speaker B:A big progress.
Speaker B:Of course it's an open market, all the players coming to the compete Today I think it's A bilateral, it's a learning process.
Speaker B:We learn from the Western also some best practice, especially digital.
Speaker B:We export some practice to the rest of the world, share the value in the consumer goods and the retailer.
Speaker B:So that's why we come here to make communication with the friends also learn some valuable case from the world.
Speaker B:So I think of course not only the practice progress, also the quality of the commercial, quality of the goods, quality of the service.
Speaker B:Still a lot of achievement, but still a lot of room to improve.
Speaker A:Right, right, right.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So you know, the strategic framework, excuse me, at Mungyu is it's really threefold.
Speaker A:It's drink more, drink good and drink.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Did I get that right?
Speaker A:Did I get that correct?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay, good.
Speaker A:So I'm curious those how do those three pillars relate to each other, commercially speaking?
Speaker A:And is there any tension in them as well?
Speaker B:So interesting.
Speaker B:So the dairy products still it's quite new to the daily, you know, Chinese consumer food daily the life.
Speaker B:But also the 50% of the local consumers still the some the issue for the lactoris torrent so means how we through the technologies, how we through the new formula of the milk, increase the penetration of the consumer, provide this high protein best products to the consumers.
Speaker B:It's our fundamental job, right?
Speaker B:But drink good and drink health and drink right means drink good.
Speaker B:The quality of the milk, not only the finished goods, also from the feeding, from the animal wells, from the processing, from the quality, shelf life, traceability, everything we should secure the whole value chain will be very, very and getting better to consumer.
Speaker B:Right, the drink, right.
Speaker B:That's a new challenge to us because now China coming into an age we call the Silver Hurricane, more and more people get retired, raise the new requirement for the formula.
Speaker B:Before it's a formula for the kids, for the baby, but now there's a formula for the adult, for the aging people.
Speaker B:That's a big number.
Speaker B:So that's bring challenges to the industry.
Speaker B:So that's the reason why we'll raise these strategy initiatives.
Speaker A:Okay, got it, got it.
Speaker A:Okay, very cool.
Speaker A:I'm learning lots of new things.
Speaker A:So how does you know.
Speaker A:I know the American consumer, but talk to me about the Chinese consumer.
Speaker A:How does their relationship to dairy different differ from say a Westerner's relationship to dairy?
Speaker B:Okay, quite interesting.
Speaker B:Just I think just trace back 40 years ago when we introduced the Coca Cola, when we introduced the beer, when we introduced dairy from the milk.
Speaker B:Now it's a cheese.
Speaker B:So it's in fact it's a new lifestyle.
Speaker B:I mean for the young generation, especially young generation People their manual be totally universal and westernized.
Speaker B:The westernized normal, not negative words.
Speaker B:It means they make a smart choice.
Speaker B:It's energy, nutrition, protein.
Speaker B:It's a different thinking process of the food the concept of the food best quality of the food so the food better that means life better.
Speaker B:So I think this kind of consuming behavior especially in the young, young kids, young generation.
Speaker B:So that means today we drink milk not only the drink milk with cereal also drink milk with coffee, with tea, Chinese tea, bubble tea.
Speaker B:You can see everywhere.
Speaker B:So that's it's quite interesting.
Speaker B:I think this will Most I think 80 or 90% of the Chinese local consumer percept the dairy as very high nutrition and natural food.
Speaker B:The key is to our processor and brand provider how to make it better and sophisticated the technology and improving the better the products to the consumer.
Speaker B:For example, maybe the next wave of the dairy products we are not limited in the pasteurized milk and cheese ice cream maybe healthy dairy products and function based products, pharmaceutical based products.
Speaker A:Pharmaceutical based products.
Speaker A:Okay, that's interesting because the next question I was going to ask you some allergy.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Right, right, right, right.
Speaker A:Yeah right.
Speaker A:For allergies, right?
Speaker A:Yeah right.
Speaker A:That makes sense too.
Speaker A:So the next thing, the next question I was going to ask you is actually about GLP1s because you've been positioning the brands that you carry to capitalize on that trend.
Speaker A:How confident are you in the thesis that GLP1 will take off to the degree that you've been positioning the brands in China?
Speaker B:It's quite interesting.
Speaker B:I think the China markets embarrass this.
Speaker B:It's a new things especially for the whey management group segment.
Speaker B:I think the deep reason behind it means today the reason people eat food and and select food maybe they have a different reason.
Speaker B:Before it's energy calorie joy, today it's health management.
Speaker B:So it's a philosophy to totally be changed.
Speaker A:That's really good point.
Speaker B:Starting points.
Speaker B:So we do a lot of fundamental study how to make a food company upgrading be a nutrition based function based health solution provider will be our new challenge for the new strategy before it's a condense of an energy sugar factor that's the older company, new company we should reshape our strategy to be a health solution provider.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:So that's the reason why the recent three or five years the company strategy initiatives and capex more and more involved in this field to target a segment.
Speaker B:But today is a segment maybe the tomorrow will be the mainstream.
Speaker A:Yeah, right, right, right.
Speaker A:Okay so there's another slogan you all have that I really want to talk to you about.
Speaker A:Cause it's something that as a retail geek that I am, it gets me really excited.
Speaker A:You also have a slogan called one product, one QR code.
Speaker A:What does that mean?
Speaker B:Okay, it's quite interesting I think basically we try to trace.
Speaker B:We call it traceability to check the quality, check the source, check the source of the products.
Speaker B:Maybe from the point of the retailer to the manufacturer, distributor to the procurement section to the farmer, even to the grass planting.
Speaker B:So through this traceability, make sure the consumer cannot worry about the products.
Speaker B:Not only the quality, also the freshness, also the story and the efforts every people for this agriculture product products.
Speaker B:So this kind of bring a new journey to every the consumer.
Speaker B:Of course, they help the company improve the efficiency of the process management.
Speaker B:Not only the inventory.
Speaker B:Lower response speed is quicker.
Speaker B:So just give us a monitor to monitor every step and make the organization much leaner and much fast speed to response to the customer request.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So is that, is that, is that an ideal or is that actually in practice?
Speaker A:Are you guys doing that now?
Speaker A:It's in practice, I think.
Speaker A:Super cool.
Speaker B:This is just one tool.
Speaker B:But under this tool, a lot of infrastructure.
Speaker B:We already invest the smart manufacturing we call a smart plant.
Speaker B:We also invest the smart, you know, warehouse for this kind of the key connection milestone to help this traceability, help this QR coda be much effective.
Speaker B:Also this quota could be a very friendly used tool to help the promotion to know the customer how to why they buy.
Speaker B:Even during the FIFA period.
Speaker B:We use this code jointly help all the consumer to enjoy the game to.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker B:Listen to the other voice.
Speaker A:Yeah, right, right, right.
Speaker A:All right, well, we'll get you out of here on this.
Speaker A:So my last question.
Speaker A:There's over 400 companies here at CGF in Vienna.
Speaker A:I'm curious, like what actions would you like to see the different companies commit to as a collective?
Speaker B:I think jointly together to explore the AI optimization opportunity and also the responsibility for the AI.
Speaker B:The after AI, what we should do for the ethics of the company, the compliance of the company.
Speaker B:I think AI is one topic really.
Speaker B:The second is a sustainability.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:I think not only the European colleague, you know, friends, also in China we do a lot of green practice.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So actually we totally plant 100 million trees in the desert area.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:For the farming.
Speaker B:So it's quite interesting the story, but the reason behind it today, the green story.
Speaker B:It's a request by the consumer, by the society, by the industry.
Speaker B:Every company should be taking its accountability to sustainability esg, transparency of the governance and also jointly work with the consumer together.
Speaker A:So, yeah.
Speaker A:So essentially.
Speaker A:So you'd like to see coordination and collaboration on AI and then further on sustainability.
Speaker A:Well, thank you very much.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:Thank you for joining us.
Speaker A:It's great to get the perspective of a Chinese manufacturer, especially one as that does so much volume in the dairy industry, as you all do.
Speaker A:So thank you very much.
Speaker A:Thank you to CGF as well, and to Fusion for allowing us to come in and provide all these great executive interviews to our Omnitalk audience.
Speaker A:And as always, be careful out there.