Guangdong Kelong Biotechnology.Co., Ltd.

Guangdong Kelong Biotechnology Co., Ltd. was established in 1995 and researches, manufactures and sells colourants and additives for the food industry. It is based at No. 23 Wuxianji Avenue, Huicheng, Xinhui District, Jiangmen City, Guangdong province, on a site covering 50,000 square metres with automated production lines, GMP workshops and its own inspection and testing equipment.

The company came out of the Jiangmen Biotechnology Development Centre, a national key enterprise under the State Science and Technology Commission in the early 1980s. Its founder, Li Yingming, trained in industrial fermentation and worked as engineer, deputy director, factory director and deputy general manager across the centre's food biochemical, enzyme preparation and biotechnology units. In 1993 the provincial science and technology commission acquired a monascus red product and passed the strain, fermentation and production technology to the centre. Two years of development followed, and in 1995 Li led employees in each contributing 8,000 yuan to build a natural pigment factory with an annual output of 30 tonnes of monascus red. Apart from two 15-tonne fermenters, a filter press set and a distillation column, the staff designed and built the equipment themselves.

The current range includes compound natural colourants such as a brown-red made by blending monascus red with sorghum red at a set ratio. Kelong reinvests more than 8 percent of annual sales in research, covering both original work and quality management systems.