Yihai Kerry Investments Co., Ltd.: Rice circular economy ensures safer and guaranteed supply

Company profile
 
Yihai Kerry Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Yihai Kerry) is invested and operated by the famous patriotic overseas Chinese Guo Henian, Guo Kongfeng and his nephew, Guo Kongfeng, in the mainland China. The company is diversified overseas Chinese company integrating grain and oil processing and trade, oil-chemistry, grain and oil technology R & D and other science, industry and trade businesses. As of 2017, the total investment of Yihai Kerry in China has exceeded RMB 30 billion, and currently employs 23,000 people. It has established 64 production bases in 23 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and more than 130 production-type entity enterprises in China. Wilmar International Limited is the parent company of Yihai Kerry. In 2017, Wilmar International ranked 239th among the Fortue 500 companies.
 
Challenges
 
With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization in China, the transformation of residents’ food consumption structure, and the hard constraints of the reduction of arable land, shortage of water resources, and climate change, etc. on food production, have constantly tightened, which objectively requires that China must accelerate changes the extensive operation mode to promote and innovate in circular economy mode.
 
Rice plantation plays an important role in China’s national economy and is the largest ration crop. However, for a long time, most of rice planting and processing are under conditions of decentralized planting, extensive processing, and low productivity. The “small, scattered, and low” processing pattern has exacerbated the loss of grain and the rice processing industry needs to be upgraded.
 
Facing this challenge, as a member of China's grain and oil industry, Yihai Kerry insists on technology to lead the sustainable development of the grain and oil industry, actively explores the new rice industry model of “circular economy”, and promotes the transformation and upgrading of the rice processing industry.
 
Solutions
 
Since the establishment of the first rice processing and production base in Jiamusi city, Heilongjiang province, China, Yihai Kerry has gradually set up its rice career development strategy in 2006, that is, using technological innovation to lead industrial upgrading, name brand to guarantee product quality, maintaining a leading position in technology through integrated utilization and driving green development with circular economy.
 
Since 2006, Yihai Kerry has invested several billion yuan in total and built the circular industrial model of “contract plantation-intensive processing-brandization of products-integrated utilization of byproducts-research and development of high-tech products”, thus achieving the transformation from the traditional extensive rice processing to intensive processing and full utilization of by-products.
 
Contract agriculture: benefiting agriculture in the front end and benefiting people in the rear end
 
To solve the problem of scattered planting and low efficiency, Yihai Kerry promotes the establishment of concentrated large-scale planting bases actively. It cooperates with the local cooperatives to integrate the scattered land to implement large-scale cultivation and carry out a unified cultivation management technology and mechanized operation, which effectively improves grain output and quality.
 
By the end of 2017, Yihai Kerry has established 29 rice production bases in 8 main rice production provinces. There are national geographical indications for rice in places where the core bases are located, like Panjin, Liaoning. These core bases are also in national ecological demonstration area, with particularly favorable conditions for rice production. The company will conduct water and soil testing regularly in all the Jinlongyu rice ecological bases to ensure that the whole process of rice plantation is under control.
 
Contract agriculture is the foremost link of rice circular economy. Yihai Kerry combines plantation, purchasing and storage, processing and consumption all together by implementing four-excellent contract agriculture, that is, excellent varieties, excellent producing area, excellent purchasing price and excellent technology. It promotes large-scale plantation and standardized management, which effectively solves the problem of low production efficiency of rice. Meanwhile, it takes a series of measures to guarantee income of farmers, such as taking contract agriculture as bond, starting from market demand, turning enterprises and farmer households into community of shared interests and optimizing planting structure.
 
Intensive processing: improving the utilization efficiency of rice
 
Yihai Kerry introduces automatic production lines in all the processing plants and adopts the production mode of scale drying and moderate polishing to reduce wastes in production. The company also adopts the preservation technology of carbon dioxide, which not only extends the expiration date of processed rice, but also keeps the taste of food and reduces losses caused by storage.
 
Rice bran oil, a healthy edible oil recommended by the WHO, is a kind of fat extracted from rice bran which is abundant in rice germ. Chinahas natural advantage in promoting and popularizing rice bran oil, but the integrated utilization rate of rice bran is rather low in the nation. The reason why the processing level of rice bran falls behind is that it is not easy to store fresh rice bran. Most of rice bran is used as fodder or abandoned as waste, which results in great waste of resources. Yihai Kerry has devoted plenty of resources and launched the rice and oil production model of scattered preservation and collective production and processing. It uses a series of advanced production technology, including six-hour extrusion preservation, low temperature extraction, and green enzyme degumming, which preserves the active nutrients in the cereal, like natural oryzanol, vitamin and sterol, fully.
 
In the third ICRBO on October 25, 2016, Jinlongyu rice bran oil gained praises from fat experts from many member countries like China, Japan, India, Thailand, and Vietnam, and was awarded the International Rice Bran Oil Quality Prize, also the only prize of the conference.
 
Integrated utilization: turning waste into treasure to improve value
 
Substance extracted from byproducts of rice bran oil and rice bran, like fatty acid, rice bran wax, rice bran lipoid, oryzanol and ferulic acid, is an indispensable part of rice circular economy and is widely used in specialty fats, oleochemicals and cosmetics. Rice bran wax is widely used in leather care wax, floor wax and car wax. Rice bran lipoid, which is steady in nature, is very suitable for frying. Oryzanol and ferulic are necessary nutrient elements for human body, and therefore being widely applied in medicines and cosmetics. The development of this series of extended products makes full uses of the precious rice bran resource.
 
Besides, Yihai Kerry also burns rice husks abandoned by traditional rice processing to generate power, which achieves self-supply of thermal power for the plant.
 
The last link of Yihai Kerry’s rice circular economy is making activated carbon and white carbon black from dust of rice husk, which is the most difficult and high-tech achievement. Yihai Kerry uses renewable rice husk dust as raw material. The rice husks produced by each ton of rice can produce 0.03 ton of high value-added white carbon black. This high dispersed white carbon black is the best raw material to produce green tire. It can not only increase the strength of rubber, but also lowers the rolling resistance of tire and improves fuel efficiency, thus protecting environment. At present, white carbon black produced by Yihai Kerry from rice husks has been used by the world leading tire manufacture and is being applied in the globe.
 
Achievements
 
Yihai Kerry makes integrated use of grain resource to add its value and drives the traditional agriculture and agricultural products to transform from extensive plantation to targeted production, from primary processing to intensive processing, from resource consumption to efficient utilization, which helps to identify the location of agriculture precisely, increase added value and extend industrial chain. It has found a beneficial road to transform China from a large agricultural country to a strong agricultural country, to solve issues relating to agriculture, rural areas and rural people and the construction of new countryside.
 
Yihai Kerry produces 70,000 tons of rice bran oil each year, which creates a value of 14,000,000 yuan. If the country can yield 20,000,000 tons of rice each year, there will be 16 million tons of rice bran and 2.3 billion tons of rice bran oil, which means the value of the industry is increased by 4.6 billion yuan. Meanwhile, if all the rice bran is used to produce oil, the amount of oil got from it will be equal to 13 million tons of soybean. It will save 11,000,000 mu of arable land used to plant soybeanforour country and greatly improve China’s self-supply of edible oil.
 
The rice husk power generation technology developed by Yihai Kerry not only turns rice husk from waste to treasure, but also provides a realistic and meaningful solution to the conflict between global energy consumption and environmental protection. The amount of rice husks burnt by Yihai Kerry each year is about 600,000 tons, which means saving 350,000 tons of coal, lowering power generation cost by 72 million yuan and reducing carbon dioxide emission by 35 million tons. According to the calculation, if all the 41.4 million tons of rice husks of the 200,000,000 tons of rice are all used to generate power, it can save around 26 million tons of coal, lower power generation cost by 4.9 billion yuan and reduce sulfur dioxide emission by over 300,000 tons.
 
Yihai Kerry’s rice circular economy model is operable and can be generalized, which has leading and demonstrative function for the grain and oil industry of China and even the world. In 2010, the rice circular economy model of Yihai Kerry was awarded the first prize of science and technology of Chinese Cereals and Oils Association. In April, 2017, Yihai (Jiamusi) Grain and Oil Industry Co. Ltd., the subsidiary company of Yihai Kerry, was officially approved by the National Development and Reform Commission as a pilot company for standardization of national rice processing circular economy, the only pilot enterprise in China’s rice processing industry, which indicates that this world leading rice circular economy model has been included in the national green development plan.
 
Prospects
 
As a pilot company for standardization of national rice processing circular economy, Yihai Kerry will spare no effort to assume the responsibility given by the state to fully promote the rice recycling economy industrial chain model and promote the transformation and upgrading of China's grain processing industry. For the long term development, Yihai Kerry’s rice recycling economy is based on the sustainable development of the industry and focuses on building a resource-saving and environment-friendly society that not only benefits the present but also benefits future generations.