Because it is rich in flavonoids, quinic acid, anthocyanins, vitamin C and other nutrients, Hangzhou Baiju is known as the "Queen of Flowers" and is well-known in the fields of traditional Chinese medicine and health care products. Products under the Amway Nutrilite brand contain

Because it is rich in nutrients such as flavonoids, quinic acid, anthocyanins, and vitamin C, Chrysanthemum chrysanthemum is known as the "Queen of Flowers" and is well-known in the fields of traditional Chinese medicine and health care products. Products under the Amway Nutrilite brand contain feverfew extracts, including plant complex probiotics, Bao Ming, collagen peptides, etc.

The flower center of the white chrysanthemum is a neatly arranged cylindrical wreath layer. During the entire blooming period, the cylindrical flowers will bloom sequentially from the outside to the inside. When they bloom to the third and fourth layers, the phytonutrients contained in the flowers are in The most enriched state is the best harvest period.

This discovery came from the Amway Plant Research and Development Center, and the research and development personnel conducted far more research on Hangzhou Baiju. At the Amway Plant R&D Center, there are many similar cases.

"The actual control of the whole process from seeds to products is phytonutrients, which must be optimal and best." said Han Qiang, general manager of Amway Technology Innovation Center.

Han Qiang, General Manager of Amway Technology Innovation Center

Phytonutrients are plant secondary metabolites. In the long process of evolution, plants consume their own energy and synthesize the sugars produced by photosynthesis through various chemical reactions to synthesize secondary metabolites, such as saponins in ginseng and glycyrrhizic acid in licorice. For human health, saponins It can relieve fatigue and improve memory. Glycyrrhizic acid has antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective and detoxifying effects.

pursues the ultimate in phytonutrients throughout Amway Nutrilite's 90-year brand growth.

Building a Chinese R&D system

Turning the clock back to the 1920s and 1930s, Nutrilite founder Carl Hongbang drew inspiration from Chinese herbal medicine and proposed the concept of phytonutrient supplements after living in China for 12 years. In 1934 The first plant-derived multivitamin and mineral nutritional supplement was developed in the United States in 2001, and NUTRILITE was born.

Nutrilite founder Carl Hongbang

Time came to 1998, the Nutrilite brand entered the Chinese market for the first time with protein powder products. As of December 2023, Amway Nutrilite has a total of 90 products on sale in China, covering the four major tracks of vitamins and minerals, protein, probiotics, and Chinese herbal medicine. In the 26 years since

entered China, Nutrilite has completed comprehensive localization and advancement from sales to production, research and development, and innovation. Amway China has also taken advantage of the situation and switched its track to the field of comprehensive health.

Phytonutrients, as the core competitiveness of the Amway Nutrilite brand for 90 years, have also continued to build barriers in the process.

On the one hand, Amway has successively invested in the construction of three major scientific research centers in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Wuxi, establishing a complete product research and development innovation system in China; on the other hand, Amway has gone deep into the source of selective breeding and started organic planting. By understanding genetics and The environment affects the production and accumulation of various secondary metabolites, improves the biosynthetic efficiency of target secondary metabolites, and at the same time promotes the standardization and targeted planting of Chinese herbal medicine plants.

In 2002, Amway invested US$15 million in the Guangzhou Product R&D Center, focusing on product process development, technical support, packaging design, etc.; in 2004, the Shanghai R&D Center was established to specialize in new technologies and new concepts, formula design, and conduct clinical testing and Product evaluation, etc.

In 2015, the Amway (China) Plant R&D Center with a total investment of US$25 million was opened. It is located in the Hongshan area of ​​Wuxi and covers an area of ​​714 acres. It is also the world's first plant R&D center of Amway Company, with a scientific research laboratory and a scientific research greenhouse. , two smart agriculture exploration laboratories and a scientific research farm covering an area of ​​500 acres.

Wuxi’s plant research and development center is also the forefront of Amway’s selective breeding and organic planting.

Amway (China) Plant R&D Center

is studying "chip" technology in the agricultural field

Han Qiang said that the Amway Plant R&D Center can be called the largest plant variety resource library in the industry, with 304 species of lotus, 124 species of medicinal chrysanthemums, 131 Plant blueberries, etc. Among them, Hangbaiju , which has high and balanced phytonutrient content, stands out from hundreds of medicinal chrysanthemum varieties.

In the whole chain of "seeds - planting - harvesting - extraction - formula - production - finished products", selective breeding is at the very beginning and is the first step in the pursuit of phytonutrients for Amway Nutrilite products.

breeding is called the "chip" technology in the agricultural field. The reason why Amway wants to go deep into the most cutting-edge breeding links and cultivate new varieties that do not exist, Han Qiang pointed out two major reasons. One is to fight against species degradation, which is similar to traditional Chinese medicine due to its use of Chinese herbal medicine. The principles of reduced quality and reduced efficacy are consistent. The second is to cultivate varieties that contain more phytonutrients that benefit human health and to abandon the highly controversial genetically modified methods.

Using traditional cross-breeding methods, the Amway Plant R&D Center developed a new variety of lotus - "Zhiyan No. 1". This new variety has the characteristics of enlarged leaves and numerous blooms, and has a flowering period of up to 4 months, which is better than the 1 to 2 months of ordinary varieties. Its leaves and petals also contain high levels of nuciferine and flavonoid phytonutrients. Compared with other varieties, it is an important plant raw material for future product innovation.

Cross-breeding takes a long time, often more than ten years. In order to shorten the breeding process, in 2023, the Amway Plant R&D Center cooperated with the China Aerospace and Hainan Aerospace Engineering Breeding R&D Center to create a global precedent for large-scale aerospace breeding of Chinese herbal plants.

Space breeding, also known as space mutagenesis, refers to sending crop seeds or mutagenic materials to space on return satellites or high-altitude balloons, using the special environmental mutagenesis in space to mutate the seeds, and then returning to the ground to cultivate new crop varieties. new breeding techniques.

At present, the Amway Plant R&D Center has completed three seeds recovery for aerospace breeding of Chinese herbal medicines. It still needs to be planted to detect the changes in the types and contents of secondary metabolites in the mutant plants to determine whether they meet the requirements for high-quality new varieties.

The next step in selective breeding is planting, and organic planting has been Amway Nutrilite's 90-year persistence.

From organic planting to smart farm

Currently, Amway Nutrilite has four major organic farms around the world, namely Salmon Lake West Farm and Salmon Lake East Farm in the United States, covering a total area of ​​3,600 acres, a Mexican farm of 9,600 acres, and a Brazilian farm of 24,870 acres. mu.

Amway Salmon Lake West Farm

Nutrilite, which has a profound accumulation in the field of organic agriculture, has formed nine standards for organic farming, including conventional standards such as habitat protection, no pollution, seed protection, land rotation, etc. It has also innovatively proposed that the farm is As part of the surrounding communities and continuous improvement standards, we also help surrounding communities and promote organic planting standards to other farmers to achieve sustainable development.

Xi Yunguan, Ph.D., researcher and deputy chief engineer of the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, pointed out that the development of organic agriculture in China has a history of more than 30 years and aims to solve problems such as food pollution, food quality decline, soil degradation, soil erosion, and high energy consumption. .

He said: "A progressive logic is that first there is healthy soil, then there are healthy plants, then there are healthy animals, healthy food, and then there is human health. The root cause is healthy soil, and the benefits of organic agriculture The core is to cultivate healthy soil. "

In terms of cultivating healthy soil, Amway not only participates in national projects, but also practices the above nine standards.

In 2016, Amway Plant R&D Center participated in the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” national key R&D plan-“Agricultural non-point source pollution and heavy metal pollution prevention and control technology demonstration project in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River” project to carry out comprehensive prevention and restoration research on farmland pollution, promote and form a number of industry A leading environmentally friendly agricultural demonstration research and production base.

According to reports, in the first three years after the establishment of the Amway Plant R&D Center, green manure was continuously planted to improve the soil. To this day, dozens of acres of land are still planted with green manure every year.

The stems and leaves of green manure plants decompose in the soil, which will greatly increase the organic matter and various trace elements in the soil. Data shows that every 1,000 kilograms of green manure and fresh grass can provide 6.3 kilograms of nitrogen, 1.3 kilograms of phosphorus, 5 kilograms of potassium, 13.7 kilograms of urea, 6 kilograms of superphosphate and 10 kilograms of potassium sulfate.

On the road of organic cultivation, Amway is selecting its fifth largest organic farm in China, which is the first organic farm in Asia.

"We hope that the Amway China Organic Farm will be the most technologically advanced, can export its planting experience to other organic farms, and also become a benchmark farm for the organic cultivation of Chinese herbal medicine in China." Han Qiang said that the Amway China Organic Farm will not only be organic For planting, we need to further realize regenerative organic and smart organic. The site selection work has been carried out for a year and a half, and more than 150 soil tests must be completed at each location.

Amway China Organic Farm has yet to be officially announced, and this is also an important puzzle piece for Amway to achieve comprehensive localization since entering the Chinese market. While Amway ensures stable improvement in product quality through full-process control from seed to finished product, it also uses community operations as a multi-point front to promote the transformation of marketers into healthy lifestyle advocates spread all over the world.

Create a community of good life

As the national economy grows and society enters the aging stage, the number of people with chronic diseases is expanding simultaneously, and health has become the focus of national attention. In the context of the "Healthy China" policy, the national nutrition plan is a major focus . Data shows that by 2024, the market size of China's nutritional and health food industry will increase to 678 billion yuan.

In this market of hundreds of billions, Amway Nutrilite is accelerating product innovation through the "Shen Nong System" driven by AI algorithms. In 2023, based on the two-way computing power of the "Shen Nong System", Amway Nutrilite developed a new anti-aging product, Jiyuan Xinhuo, which contains rutin, quercetin, ellagic acid, gallic acid and other phytonutrient ingredients, and was covered by the top international journal "Cell" 》 proposed 12 major signs of cell aging such as genome instability, cell senescence, mitochondrial damage, and chronic inflammation. The sales of the new product reached 1 billion yuan within 8 months of its launch.

The market has given positive feedback to Amway Nutrilite’s R&D innovation with phytonutrients as the core. As a nutrition and health brand spanning two centuries, it is the right thing to reach people through products and improve their health.

With 2020 as the turning point, the "New Amway" that has transformed into a big health track has also innovated its business model. Jiang Jingyuan, director of media communications of Amway China, pointed out that the company has shifted from business training promotion to a big health community operation model.

Through innovative plant nutrition products and personalized health solutions, Amway advocates the implementation of healthy habits and the development of a healthy lifestyle, in order to create a better life community. For users, through the community's example and health driving force, they can reshape their lifestyles and gain new health awareness. For companies, the community drives long-term use of products and achieves a fission of the product's word-of-mouth effect.

Under the community operation model, the relationship between enterprises and consumers has been reconstructed, advancing from profit-driven to people-oriented, with equality and mutual benefit becoming the core. (This article was first published on Titanium Media app)