Dr. Xuguang Zhang is currently the Vice President of Mengniu Group and the Head of the Group's Nutrition and Health, R&D. He has previously served as the Executive Director of the Nutrition and Health Research Institute at ByHealth Co., Ltd.; Senior Scientist at the UK-listed company Provexis Plc (a company focused on drug and functional food ingredient R&D); Senior Scientist and New Product Development Manager at the UK-listed company Science in Sport Plc; and Senior Scientist and Nutritionist at the R&D headquarters of Fonterra Co-operative Group in New Zealand.
With over two decades of experience, Dr. Zhang has been dedicated to the innovation and R&D of functional ingredients, foods, and pharmaceuticals in areas such as cardiovascular health, metabolic health, gut health, infant nutrition, sports nutrition, and geriatric nutrition. While working as a researcher at the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Aberdeen, UK, he conducted research on systemic inflammation markers, interventions, and whey protein peptide functions in basic and clinical medicine. In 2010, Dr. Zhang led a UK research team in submitting and pioneering the EU-approved first nutrition and health claim: "Maintains normal platelet aggregation and normal blood flow health" (European Food Safety Authority, EFSA Regulation 13.5).
As functional foods become a new global health consumption trend, China's dairy industry is waging a breakthrough battle driven by "hardcore technology." Mengniu Group has for the first time revealed its dual-engine model of "technology + ecosystem" in the field of nutritional health innovation. By collaborating with top-tier research institutions such as Peking University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University to establish joint laboratories, the group has adopted a reverse R&D approach to co-create value with upstream and downstream partners. This strategy precisely addresses societal needs such as aging populations and chronic disease prevention, leading to the successful launch of multiple precision nutrition products tailored to specific consumption scenarios. These include HMO-enriched milk, functional yogurt with health benefits, and health-targeted milk powder for middle-aged and elderly consumers.
Not only has Mengniu restructured the innovation chain—from ingredient screening to technical validation and industrial transformation—but it has also pioneered a functional shift in dairy products, moving from basic nutrition to targeted interventions. While the industry remains mired in price wars, Mengniu has built a health product matrix covering the entire life cycle, extending the value chain of each carton of milk beyond traditional dairy boundaries through an integrated ecosystem of industry-academia-research-application.
In this revolution of value redefinition, what we witness is not just the upgrade of a product but the strategic transformation of a hundred-billion-yuan market—from the "red ocean" of conventional milk to the "blue ocean" of precision nutrition.