“A Gift to the United Nations”: What Enables Chinese Rice Bran Oil to Gain International Recognition?

What journey has a Chinese-made rice oil undergone to earn such prestigious recognition and become a benchmark of quality among China’s agricultural products?

Recently, the most solemn event in the series of celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the United Nations’ presence in China was held in Beijing. More than 800 guests attended the ceremony, including Mr. Roos, the UN Resident Coordinator in China, representatives from foreign embassies, international organizations, the academic community, the media, and officials from various UN agencies.

This event also invited outstanding enterprises and industry representatives from various sectors, and Jinlongyu Rice Bran Oil was the only product in the domestic edible oil category to be selected.

From its early entry into the Japanese market, where Golden Dragon Fish rice oil won the International Quality Award for Rice Oil, to its subsequent export to markets overseas, including the United States and Canada, and even its “tribute” to the United Nations—each milestone represents yet another testament to the exceptional quality of Chinese rice oil.

As is well known, the past 40 years of the United Nations’ presence in China have also been a period of witnessing both the advancement of agricultural science and technology in China and the rise of Chinese agriculture.

China has transformed from an initial situation in which it relied heavily on agricultural imports, struggled to achieve food self-sufficiency, and faced severe challenges in ensuring adequate food supplies for hundreds of millions of people, into a country that, under the leadership of outstanding Chinese scientists such as Yuan Longping, now contributes to food security and development in Asia and around the world.

Rice bran oil is one of the pioneers on China’s path of agricultural and food technology development.

What journey has a Chinese-made rice oil undergone to earn such prestigious recognition and become a benchmark of quality among China’s agricultural products?

More than a decade ago, Mu Yanhui, Vice Chairman of Yihai Kerry, first encountered a category of edible oil in Japanese supermarkets that was unavailable in China; the category was labeled in Japanese as “rice oil.”

Puzzled, he promptly approached a supermarket sales associate for advice. Upon learning that this oil is extracted from rice bran, a lightbulb went off in his mind, and a clear vision of a brand-new industrial development strategy began to take shape.

After many twists and turns, he brought back a tiny sample from Japan and submitted it to a high-standard edible-oil laboratory in China, then said meaningfully, “Let’s see if we can develop it ourselves.”

Embarking on the R&D of rice oil—a product that had never been seen in China—left virtually no one with a clear idea of where to begin. There was no prior experience to draw upon, and even scant available information. From equipment to technology, rice oil represented a complete blank slate—not only for Jinlongyu, but for China as a whole.

“It all starts from scratch—there are no shortcuts; we have to go all in.” “We, too, have taken detours. We once imported a complete set of dewaxing equipment, but it ended up being completely underutilized. We conducted over a thousand trials, big and small, most of which yielded no results. That’s just how exploration works—there’s always a price to pay,” said Wang Yong, Technical Manager at the Rice Oil R&D Center.

With advances in rice bran oil refining technology, Jinlongyu continues to ramp up its investment in this field. “Every time I meet the chairman, his top concern is whether consumers are having a positive product experience, and he repeatedly emphasizes that we must strive to deliver the very best possible oil quality.”

Zhang Bo, under considerable pressure to boost product sales, said: “We periodically collect rice oil samples from Japan and other countries, bring them back for comprehensive testing and benchmarking against industry standards. The company’s management places tremendous emphasis on quality, insisting that all performance metrics exceed industry norms. Our research into the quality of rice oil has never paused for a single day.”

Wang Yong, head of R&D, also revealed that during the product upgrade process for the “Dual Ten Thousand” initiative, each experimental run at the factory results in a waste of 200–300 tons of oil and hundreds of millions in investment if the experiment fails. “This is a level of sacrifice that the vast majority of ordinary companies wouldn’t even dare to contemplate.”

“We just have to grit our teeth and keep going.” How far did the rice oil team push themselves in the end? To verify the quality of their rice oil, they decided to launch Jinlongyu rice oil in Japan—pitting it against a country with over a century of research and development in rice oil. “If we win, so what? We’ll simply keep moving forward on this path.”

“Even when we lose, we know where we went wrong—and that only motivates us to keep digging deeper. After all, our sole goal is to deliver the very best for the people.” There are only a handful of companies in China that think this way and act accordingly.

Ultimately, China Rice Oil was priced on par with mainstream Japanese rice oil, upholding a commitment to fair competition. Leveraging its superior quality—with a γ-oryzanol content 3 to 5 times higher than that of leading Japanese brands—it successfully launched in the Japanese market.