Nestle SA's booth at a trade show in Beijing in October, 2013. [Photo/China Daily]

Swiss food and nutrition giant Nestle announced on May 16 the partnership with technology firm Xiaomi to support health through technology and explore digital nutrition to tap the increasing demands from the ageing population in the country.

Nestlé Yiyang, a nutrition unit designed for consumers aged over 50, and MIUI's collaboration on digital nutrition and health will focus on the combination of an algorithm to evaluate dietary intake with smart technology, to help Chinese consumers improve their diet and bring concrete benefits to their health.

According to the Global Burden of Disease report 2016, dietary inadequacies are the number one risk to the health of Chinese people, especially the middle-aged and older group.

In China, people over 50 years old account for 28.3 percent of the total population, and this number is increasing at a fast rate. Addressing the needs of this aging population has become a severe challenge to the Chinese society.

Angelo Giardino, CEO of milk, ice cream and industry sales, Nestle China, said that Nestle is preparing to integrate its long experience and achievements in scientific research in the field of nutrition with modern technology to help middle-aged and elderly groups balance their diet to improve their nutrition in a convenient way. Giardinor said the efforts to embrace digital tools is to engage more with daily consumers among the middle-aged and elders in China as they are frequent users of internet and mobile devices for social, gaming and entertainment contents. The platform is also a two-way communication for Nestle to better understand their consumers through data collecting.

A result of nearly one-year long efforts of both teams, the platform allows its users to click and input their "Daily Meal Intake" and import data about their weight, blood pressure, sleep and exercise through MIUI’s smart wearable devices. Then, the plan is that by using of big data analytics and scientific algorithms, the platform will generate nutrition reports according to the individual's health.

Li Weixing, vice-president of MIUI, said that this cooperation is one of MIUI's attempts to meet the diverse needs of consumers. MIUI will use its own advantages in product clusters and strong technical capabilities to provide the right services at the right time and at the right place.

According to the 320,000 user's data that the platform has gathered to date, a first People's Dietary Nutrition and Health Report was published on the site, showing that the daily intake of food variety per capita is far below standard recommendations. Nestle’s Yi Yang and MIUI hope that this report will increase public awareness about the importance of a balanced diet and good nutrition.