The Forum on Food Safety in Poultry Supply Chain & the 3rd Semi-annual Meeting of Walmart Collaboration Project on Poultry Excellence in China was held on 27th June in Beijing, China. This project is a new integrated research model for production, learning, and research, and was sponsored by Walmart Food Safety Collaborative Center. This international team has more than fifteen members from four universities and one research institute from both China and the US, and the interdisciplinary team includes poultry science, biological engineering, industrial engineering and supply chain management. The team has been closely collaborating with three competing poultry companies in China.

The investigators of the project, representatives of poultry companies, the members of advisory committee and senior level administrators from University of Arkansas and China Agricultural University attended the meeting. The advisory committee included three Members of Chinese Academy of Engineering (Maohua Wang, Junshi Chen, and Chunjiang Zhao), “Thousand Talents Program” Professor from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Joe Zhou), the Director of the Department of Microbiological Tests at China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment (Fengqin Li), the Professor from the College of Engineering at China Agricultural University (Yankun Peng), and the Executive Director of Walmart Food Safety Collaborative Center (Zhinong Yan). The attendees also included the Dean of the College of Engineering, University of Arkansas (John English), Vice Dean of the College of Information and Electrical Engineering at China Agricultural University (Man Zhang), the investigators from South China Agricultural University-SCAU (Ming Liao, Jianming Zhang, etc.), China Agricultural University-CAU (Jianhan Lin, Ning Liu, 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, Chase Rainwater, Ronghui Wang, etc.), and industry representatives from New Hope Liuhe poultry company (Xibin Zhang, etc.).

Photo 1: The investigators of the project, representatives of poultry companies, and the members of advisory committee attended the meeting.

Dr. Yanbin Li from UA chaired the meeting, and introduced the members of the advisory committee and the PIs and Co-PIs from the US and China. The opening remarks were given by Vice Dean of the College of Information and Electrical Engineering at CAU (Man Zhang), the Dean of the College of Engineering at UA (John English), and the Executive Director of Walmart Food Safety Collaboration Center (Zhinong Yan), respectively.

Photo 2: Dr. Yanbin Li from UA (left top) chaired the meeting, and the opening remarks were given by Vice Dean of the College of Information and Electrical Engineering at CAU (Man Zhang) (right top), the Dean of the College of Engineering at UA (John English) (left bottom), and the Executive Director of Walmart Food Safety Collaboration Center (Zhinong Yan) (right bottom), respectively.

The objective of this project is to investigate foodborne pathogens and antibiotics residues in the poultry supply chain, study in-field testing methods and intervention technologies, and apply risk assessment and supply chain management to improve food safety of poultry supply chains in China. During the meeting, Dr. Ming Liao from SCAU represented the group and gave a presentation on the background, the progress, the impact and the challenges of the project. Then, Dr. John Kent from UA reported the collaboration between the US and China. Comments, advice and suggestions were provided by the advisory committee, including the performance evaluation of the rapid detection technology, the stability of the risk assessment model, and the potential problem of antibiotic residues. Based on the suggestions and expectations from the advisory committee, the key points of the project and the next plan of the research were discussed in detail.

Photo 3: Left top: Dr. Ming Liao from SCAU gave a presentation; Right top: Dr. John Kent from UA reported the collaboration between the US and China; Left bottom: advisory committee member Chinese academician Dr. Maohua Wang gave his suggestions on this project; and Right bottom, Co-PI Dr. Jianhan Lin from CAU discussed the next step of the project.