Take the handles on Yihai Kerry Arawana's (YKA) rice packs sold across China. After extensive R&D, the team developed a patented design that replaced the hard, injection-moulded plastic grips with softer polyethylene. The new material produces the same strength and durability, but 21% less material on 5kg bags and 16% less on 10kg bags.
Across the volumes YKA moves, that single design change eliminates an estimated 1,100 tonnes of plastic a year – roughly the weight of 550 cars.
Previous rice packs with moulded plastic handles by YKA, a Wilmar subsidiary
New patented soft handles for YKA's 5kg and 10kg rice packs eliminate the use of an estimated 1,100 MT of plastic annually
It is a useful illustration of where a lot of Wilmar's technology work actually sits: not in revolutionary product launches or breakthroughs, but in the kind of iterative, technical problem-solving that operates below the waterline.
Using AI to taste and save
In Singapore, Wilmar's R&D team has been combining AI with gas chromatography to predict the flavour profile of roasted peanut oil from its raw, unroasted state. The practical application is more precise raw material allocation before processing begins, reducing waste at the source rather than managing it afterwards.
Shelled and kernel-selected peanuts ready to be crushed
The team also leverages AI to analyse how food products are formulated, helping develop more cost-effective alternatives, and applying similar tools to detect adulteration in edible oils that might alter taste and quality.
Breeding better plants
Some of the most consequential work runs on the longest timelines, which is perhaps why it draws the least attention.
In Kalimantan and West Java, Wilmar has established dedicated clonal palm laboratories working towards producing 500,000 clonal oil palms annually by 2026. Clonal palms are selected for superior yield characteristics, meaning more oil from the same planted area with correspondingly lower inputs per tonne produced.
In Queensland, Australia, Wilmar’s sugar division is applying genomic selection technology to its cane breeding programme. By identifying superior parent varieties through genetic markers rather than waiting out full growing cycles, the team has reduced the average age of top breeding stock from 14 years to six. Higher-yielding, higher-sucrose varieties can now enter commercial production meaningfully faster than traditional methods allowed.
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Cane breeding in Queensland, Australia
Neither development will be visible to anyone buying sugar or palm oil at the end of the supply chain. Both shape the efficiency and resource intensity of everything that comes after them.
Scale as a multiplier
Wilmar operates more than 1,000 manufacturing plants across 36 countries, with around 100,000 employees globally. At that scale, the arithmetic on incremental improvements changes significantly. A 16% material reduction on a rice bag handle becomes 1,100 tonnes annually. A modest improvement in oil palm yield per hectare, applied across hundreds of thousands of planted hectares, translates into a measurable shift in land-use efficiency.
YKA's R&D centre in Shanghai, China
The technology and innovative work happening across Wilmar's R&D centres is, in large part, about engineering those kinds of multipliers, one iteration at a time.