The project annual meeting was held on November 14th, 2017, at Hangzhou in China. There were more than fifty attendees, which included four academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (Maohua Wang, Xiufan Liu, Weifu Chen and Jianping Chen) and advisory board members (Fengqi Li, Lei Shi and Weijia Wen), executive director of Wal-Mart Food Safety Collaborative Center (Zhinong Yan), director of International Affairs of Wal-Mart (Will Watts), president of Zhejiang Agriculture & Forestry University (Yibin Ying), dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas (John English), investigators from South China Agricultural University-SCAU (Ming Liao, Jianmin Zhang, Xiaoyun Qu, etc.), China Agricultural University-CAU (Jianhan Lin, etc.), Zhejiang University-ZJU (Jianping Wang, Yingchun Fu, etc.), Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences-ZAAS (Wen Wang, etc.), and University of Arkansas-UA (Yanbin Li, Michael Kidd, John Kent, Ed Pohl, Chase Rainwater and Ronghui Wang), and industry representatives from Jiangfeng poultry company ( Xianjun Zeng), Fujian Sunner Enterprise Group (Wei Ye) and New Hope Liuhe poultry company (Jiyuan Guo, Chenjun Min and Xibin Zhang).
Prof. Ming Liao of SCAU and Prof. Yanbin Li of UA co-chaired the meeting. ZJU Dean Yong He gave an opening speech on behalf of the college and expressed a warm welcome to the delegates attending this meeting. Then, the opening remarks were given by vice president of ZAAS Hua Yang, dean of the College of Engineering at UA John English, and executive director of Wal-Mart Food Safety Collaborative Center Zhinong Yan, respectively. During the meeting, investigators in each subgroup (risk assessment group, biosensor group and supply chain management group) gave a presentation on the progress report of the project and a brief discussion on the plan for the follow-up research. Advice and suggestions were provided by the Advisory Committee. In the afternoon, the International Symposium on Quality Meat and Poultry Food Safety was held. The following topics were discussed: (1) The current situation of food safety in China; (2) The technology needed by large poultry production enterprises in China for food safety; (3) Rapid detection and traceability technologies for food safety; (4) The safety standards for Walmart to procure poultry products in China; (5) Similarities and differences of the food safety between the US and China; (6) The future of food safety in China; (7) Risk assessment to food safety in China; and (8) The logistics management for food safety. At the end, the closing remarks were given by Profs. Maohua Wang, John English and Ming Liao, respectively.