Eight major issues highlight new issues in food safety and health transition

On April 16-19, the 2019 International Conference on Food Safety and Health was held in Beijing with the theme of "Innovation Drives Food Safety and Health". The conference was strongly supported by the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Areas, the General Administration of Customs, the Chinese Association of Science and Technology, the China Light Industry Federation, the National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center and the Beijing Association of Science and Technology.

This conference focuses on safety and health, invites domestic and foreign food industry heavyweight cafes to report around the theme of "innovation drives food safety and health", and carries out in-depth discussions around eight key directions, in order to focus on the hot and difficult points of China's food safety and health transformation from the perspective of innovation and development.

Focus 1: Challenges posed by sustainable development

Gordon Mcbean, former President of the International Scientific Council, said at the meeting that the global sustainable development, climate change and disaster risk reduction agenda for 2030 must focus on addressing the cross-cutting issues of food and health. In the World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2019, extreme weather events (including storms, floods and heatwaves), failure of mitigation and adjustment measures for climate change and natural disasters are listed as the three major risks among the five global risks in the next 10 years. These risks will have an impact on health and food, often in very complex ways. The role of food supply and its processing methods in the global environment is also facing challenges posed by these risks. How to solve these problems through food science and innovation requires scientists, industry and policymakers to form interdisciplinary teams to work together to achieve results that have long-term impact on global health, food and sustainability. Vish Prakash, science chairman of the International Food Science and Technology Alliance (IUFoST), said in his report "Safety beyond Food Safety - Future Plan for Safe Food", that food must be 100% safe and there must be no transaction on safety. Food safety assurance is a very complex issue, involving the coordination of management between departments, as well as all sanitary and agricultural standards and plant quarantine regulations. It also includes that food processing must conform to the development of the latest analytical methods to ensure the safe entry of products into the market. It is an inevitable trend for food safety regulators to link food safety with cutting-edge science. There is no excuse for consuming unsafe food in one region or country or exporting unsafe food to other countries.

Focus 2: Embrace Big Health with Scientific and Technological Innovation

With the successive promulgation of the Outline of the "Healthy China 2030" Program and the National Nutrition Plan (2017-2030), Healthy China has officially upgraded to a national strategy, and the field of Big Health has entered an era of rapid development. In this context, the food industry actively promotes the construction of healthy China, embracing the great health with scientific and technological innovation.

Dr. Li Yongjing, Honorary Vice-President of China Food Science and Technology Society and President of Asia-Pacific Region of DuPont Nutrition and Health Division, said in his report on the trend of promoting healthy food innovation in Asia that the world has undergone tremendous changes in the past decade, especially witnessing the continuing changes in Asia, which has the largest elderly population in the world. According to New Nutrition Business magazine, digestive health, plant-based and protein are among the top ten trends in food, health and nutrition worldwide. Old-age food, fermented/probiotic food and vegetable protein food will be the future innovation direction of health food industry in Asia. At the Forum on Food Nutrition and Health, participants agreed that the food industry was the best carrier for the landing of the National Nutrition Plan and that scientific and technological support for health research in the transition of the food industry should be strengthened. As a leading enterprise in the frozen food industry with rapid development, Chen Xi, president of Sanquan Food Co., Ltd. shared the technology of frozen food industry and the internationalization level of the whole cold chain transportation in China, so that freshness could be redefined. Experts such as the State Administration of Market Supervision, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Food Science and Technology Alliance have exchanged on the topics of "Problems and Suggestions in the Registration and Acceptance of Formulated Foods for Special Medical Purposes", "What Are People Eating around the World", "Child Obesity". In addition, they have also focused on sugar and human health, salt reduction actions, probiotics and probiotics. The discussion provided a breakthrough for the basic research and technological innovation of food nutrition and health by domestic and foreign food scientists for many years, and also provided technical support and development direction for the transformation of food industry. At the meeting, Liu Chunxi, Vice President of Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co., Ltd., Gao Ruihong, Chairman of Royal Netherlands Fischer Lan China Business Group, Zhou Zhiyi, Director of Agricultural Resources China and President of Food Department of Jinguang Group, Zhang Qingfeng, Global Executive Vice President of Yikang Group and President of Greater China Region, Pu Jianfei, President of Lesfo Greater China Region, and Wal-Mart Food Safety Collaboration Sigrid Haas-Lauterbach, Executive Director of Heart, Yan Zhinong and General Manager of Food and Feed Safety Inspection Division of Baifa Group, Germany, also shared their experiences on innovation-driven food safety and health during the peak entrepreneurship dialogue.

Focus 3: Exploring the "China Program" of Food Safety Supervision System

In order to strengthen the construction of food control systems in various countries, the International Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) initiated the establishment of a set of regional food safety indicators. The initiative has attracted the attention of different regions in Asia and the Pacific and has become the focus of national food safety conferences. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FA)