Auburn University professor helps ensure food safety for Olympics
When more than 10,000 athletes and 22,000-plus international journalists converge on Beijing, China, in August for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, an Auburn University biosystems engineering assistant professor will have played a pivotal role in helping ensure that the foods they are served are safe. Auburn's Yifen Wang is one of 15 food safety authorities on the Beijing Olympic Food Safety Expert Committee. This international group has been working since 2005 in establishing safety standards and setting up systems for food testing and monitoring, including a mobile laboratory. The volume of food being prepared for the Olympic Village and for the concessions includes 330 tons of fruits and vegetables, 130 tons of meat, 82 tons of seafood, 21 tons of cheese and 19 tons of eggs. Wang, who traveled to Beijing twice to meet with the committee, says global positioning systems and radio-frequency identification technology are being used to monitor and track all Olympic food products through the production, processing and distribution processes. Wang was instrumental in the committee's adoption of the radio-frequency identification system in 2005. To read the news release, see http://wireeagle.auburn.edu/news/409.