Driven by the new development pattern of “double circulation”, new retail and new consumption trends are developing rapidly in China. “Scientific and technological innovation is of great significance to the development of China’s food industry in the new era”. Ding Gangqiang, director of the Institute of nutrition and health of the China Center for Disease control and prevention, said at the Symposium on “scientific and technological innovation enables the high-quality development of the food industry” held a few days ago, By continuously promoting scientific and technological innovation, food enterprises will present more new products to consumers, and rely on scientific and technological innovation to share more advanced experience in the process of carbon peak and carbon neutralization among peers, so as to promote the common progress of the industry. China, the world’s first ice cream “lighthouse factory”, is the best proof.
“Lighthouse factory” is jointly selected by the world economic forum and McKinsey consulting company. It is intended to select companies that are effective in the application and integration of cutting-edge technologies in the fourth industrial revolution, so as to establish a guiding successful example for the development of Intelligent Manufacturing in the future.
In the past two years, the epidemic has had an impact on the production and supply of global food, but the ice cream industry as a whole has maintained a steady rise, especially in China’s ice cream market. According to the data, its scale reached 147 billion yuan in 2020, ranking first in the world.
In September 2021, the Taicang food production base built by Unilever in Taicang, Jiangsu Province was selected as the world’s first lighthouse factory dedicated to the food and ice cream industry, which not only showed the feasibility of China’s ice cream industry to build high-quality products through digital intelligent production, but also showed the industry the strategic position of the Chinese market in global development. At the same time, the implementation of “lighthouse factory” will further strengthen Unilever’s food safety production system, accelerate the application of digital strategy in the food manufacturing industry, and further enhance consumers’ confidence in food safety.
Xu Yucong, vice president of Unilever’s food, ice cream and beverage division, said in an interview with reporters that Taicang food production base is the world’s first ice cream factory built by Unilever in China that integrates automation, intelligence and flexibility. With the help of the artificial intelligence model of Taicang “lighthouse factory”, the company can accurately predict the market and consumer demand, double the prediction accuracy and improve the prediction efficiency from 2 days to 2 hours; Consumer oriented digital innovation tools improve innovation efficiency from 12 months to 3 months. Through the continuous deepening of its layout in the Yangtze River Delta, Unilever will make full use of the integrated resources upstream and downstream of the supply chain to bring high-quality, safe and innovative delicious ice cream to Chinese consumers.
“Taicang ‘lighthouse factory’ has also passed the national ‘three same’ certification. The exported and domestic products are guaranteed to be of the same line, standard and quality, bringing the same high-quality taste enjoyment to Chinese and foreign consumers.” Xu Cong said that more and more ice cream products produced by other countries in China can be promoted to the rest of the world.
Xu Yucong told reporters that “lighthouse factory” is an important part of Unilever’s sustainable business strategy. It has leading advantages in five fields: artificial intelligence model, consumer oriented digital innovation tool, flexible production line, black light factory with full automatic operation and opening up the end-to-end value chain. This means that every ice cream here adopts the world’s most advanced lean manufacturing and high-tech digital technology to ensure the best product quality and help the food manufacturing industry upgrade.
