Vice President Cai Wei Attended the Symposium of Novel Technologies in Food Processing and Byproducts Utilization

Vice President Cai Wei of SJTU, President Dr. John Ruff of IFT, Ren Zhushan (Joseph Jen), the ex Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Chairman of the advisory committee of Bor S. Luh Food Safety Research Center attended the symposium. 21 specially invited guests from the USA and China and about 200 representatives participated in the discussion, which was moderated by Prof. Zhou Pei, Director of School of Agriculture and Biology of SJTU.

Vice President Cai Wei said that agriculture was the pillar industry of strategic importance to promote economic development and guarantee social stability. The symposium poses as a platform to present the current status and development trend of processing technologies and byproduct utilization and discuss about the key problems and further development needs. The goal is to demonstrate the most recent development and research achievements to promote the transformation and commercialization of advanced food and byproduct processing technologies in food industry.

Ren Zhushan spoke highly of this forum. He said it offered a golden opportunity for colleagues in the academia, research institutes, food and agro-byproducts industry to exchange ideas, to develop cooperation and to promote commercial transfer of advanced technology.

On the symposium, Dr. Howard Zhang, Director of USDA Western Regional Research Center, gave a keynote speech titled "Trend in Non-thermal and Value Added Processing Technologies". Prof. Rakesh Singh, Head of Department of Food Science and Technology of University of Georgia and Prof. Liao Xiaojun, President of Key Laboratory of Fruit and Vegetables Processing and others delivered reports on non-thermal processing. Prof. Li Jianrong, Vice President of Bohai University and others gave lectures on technology development in storage of agricultural products.