08/30/2007

AU's Wang Helps Ensure Food Safety for Olympics

AUBURN, Ala. — When more than 10,500 athletes and 22,000-plus international journalists converge on Beijing, China, next 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.

AU’s Yifen Wang was one of 15 food safety authorities named to a Beijing Olympics food security panel in 2005, but that international group of experts took on new import this year amid growing global outrage over repeated recalls of contaminated Chinese food products.

Wang, a Shanghai, China, native who joined the AU faculty in 2004, has focused his research on food safety issues for 15 years. The Beijing Food Safety Administration and the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games sought him out as a board member based on his area of expertise and his fluency in Chinese and English. Wang is one of four U.S. representatives on the panel and is the board’s designated liaison for the English-speaking members. Other members include food safety authorities from China, Australia, the European Union and the World Health Organization.

Since its establishment, the group’s main charge has been to write the protocol manual for the rigorous food safety program that will be implemented during the 14-day August 2008 games. The Beijing organizing committee announced earlier this month that this program will rely heavily on the use of Global Positioning System and radio-frequency identification technology 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 RFID system.

Wang said the board, which has met in Beijing annually since 2005 and will convene for the final time next summer prior to the Olympics, has taken its responsibilities extremely seriously.

“There is great pressure on us to ensure that all foods that enter the athletes' village, media villages, main press center and international broadcasting center at the games are safe,” he said. “We are confident that the security program that has been established is a very good, highly effective system.”

Wang earned a bachelor’s degree in food engineering from Shanghai Fisheries University in 1990 and worked as a food scientist in China and a fisheries processing plant director in Senegal. He came to the U.S. in 1998 and five years later held a master’s degree in environmental engineering from the University of Washington and, from Washington State University, a doctorate in food engineering and a master’s in business administration.

The AU faculty member said he does not know yet whether his work with the food safety board will translate into a seat at the Opening Ceremonies inside Beijing National Stadium Aug. 8, 2008.

“The Beijing Food Safety Administration has applied for tickets for members of the board, and we have thanked them for their efforts,” Wang said. “But as you can imagine, those tickets are in great demand.”

-30-

News from:

Office of Ag Communications & Marketing

Auburn University College of Agriculture
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
3 Comer Hall, Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849
334-844-4877 (PHONE) 334-844-5892 (FAX)

Contact: Jamie Creamer, 334-844-2783 or jcreamer@auburn.edu

For immediate release