Hainan Yeguo Foods Co., Ltd.

Hainan Yeguo Foods Co., Ltd. produces nata de coco, the bacterial cellulose gel fermented from coconut water, at Fuji Road in the Xiuying district of Haikou, Hainan. The business rests on a 1996 invention patent by its founder Zhong Chunyan for making edible fibre by fermenting coconut water, a process that turned a waste stream from the island's coconut processing industry into a product and created the Chinese nata de coco industry.

The company has since filed 229 patent applications, including 10 PCT filings and 198 national invention patents, of which 151 have been granted. Two have won the China Patent Gold Award, one the silver award and six the China Patent Excellence Award. It maintains what it describes as the industry's only proprietary Gluconacetobacter culture collection; its high-yield cellulose strain 323 has been deposited with the China General Microbiological Culture Collection Center.

Products include nata de coco grades for ambient and chilled dairy, milk tea, compressed and honey-preserved nata de coco, bakery fillings, freeze-stable nata de coco jams for ice cream and frozen products, edible seaweed-based gels, coconut shreds and powder made on an automated aseptic line, and coconut water, coconut milk, coconut pieces and chips. It co-developed the first milk product with fruit pieces with Mengniu in 2006 and cup milk teas with Xizhilang and Xiangpiaopiao in 2008.

It took part in drafting the agricultural industry standard for coconut nata de coco, NY/T 1522-2007, and its standards for acid-preserved, honey-preserved and compressed nata de coco received a national standards innovation award. ISO 9001 and ISO 22000 certification were obtained in 2005 and SGS certification in 2012. Subsidiaries were set up at Gaochun in Nanjing in 2003, at Baoding in Hebei in 2008 and at Wuqing in Tianjin in 2009.