The College of Food Science and Engineering dates back to 1985, the year the Department of Food and Agricultural and Livestock Products Processing was established. The department was renamed the Department of Food Science in 1990 and then the College of Food Science and Engineering in March 2010. Under the college there are the Department of Food Science and Engineering, the Department of Food Quality and Safety, the Department of Brewing Engineering, and the Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center for Food Safety and Food Processing.
Faculty: There are 49 faculty members, of which 11 are professors and 17 are associate professors. The faculty wons 25 doctoral degree holders and six postdoctoral fellows. They form an excellent teaching staff in this field. Notably, besides being elected into the “National Thousand Talents Program”, some of our faculty have won the honorary titles like “Beijing Great Wall Scholars”, “Beijing Science and Technology New Stars”, “Beijing Top-notch Talents”, “Beijing Young Talents”, “Beijing Young and Middle-aged Backbone Teachers”, etc. The faculty has laid a solid foundation for promoting the discipline construction of the college and improving the quality of talent cultivation.
Discipline Construction: The college pay close attention on discipline construction. It has comprehensively improved its scientific research innovation abilities and industrial service levels by fully relying on its scientific research platforms and teams. Besides a Master’s degree program in the national first-level discipline of Food Science and Engineering, the college has also set up a series of provincial and ministerial-level key laboratories such as the “Key Laboratory of Agricultural Product Processing and Quality Control, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs”, the “Beijing Key Laboratory for Safety Testing & Controlling of Harmful Microorganisms of Agricultural Products and Pesticide Residues”, the “Beijing Laboratory for Food Quality and Safety”, and the “Beijing Engineering Laboratory for Key Technology Development of Microecologics”, as well as provincial and ministerial-level engineering centers like the “Beijing Engineering Center for Egg Safety Production and Processing” and the “Beijing Engineering Technology Research Center of Food Safety Immune Rapid Detection”, etc. The college also hosts the Green Packaging Professional Committee of the Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences. Together, they provide strong support for the discipline construction of the college.
In recent years, the college has undertaken 16 national-level projects, including the “863 Program (National High Technology Research and Development Program of China)”, the “National Public Welfare Industry Research Project of China”, and the “National Natural Science Foundation Project”, as well as 57 provincial and ministerial-level projects, with a research funding of over 30 million yuan. In addition, it has published over 600 scientific research papers, applied for over 100 national invention patents in which 33 have been granted, achieved the transformation and application of scientific and technological achievements in over 20 projects, won ten provincial and ministerial-level science and technology progress awards and teaching achievement awards, and received over 100 interviews by national, provincial, and municipal-level radio stations.
Specialty Construction: The college currently has three undergraduate specialties which are the Food Science and Engineering, Food Quality and Safety, and Brewing Engineering. Among them, the Food Science and Engineering is recognized as a characteristic specialty in Beijing. There is a Beijing Municipal Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center for Urban Agricultural Food Safety and Processing and an On-campus Demonstration Base for Innovative Practical Teaching of Food Specialties for Institutions of Higher Learning in Beijing.
The laboratories of the college provide a total usable area of approximately 10,000 m2 with 13 teaching laboratories covering the food microbiological testing, food physical and chemical testing and analysis, food biological testing, storage and processing of fruits and vegetables, livestock products processing, and food engineering. These laboratories have also deployed with complete instruments and equipment, including beverage production lines, small-scale beer production lines, wine production lines, small-sized cold storage, LC-MS, GC-MS, HPLC, food UHPP equipment, supercritical extraction equipment, automatic rapid microbial identification system, and food quality tester, with a total value of over 40 million yuan, which can fully satisfy the teaching requirements of each specialty of the college.
For the recent five years, the college has published 52 educational reform papers, undertaken 20 BUA-level educational reform projects, and won one Beijing Teaching Achievement Award, three first prizes, five second prizes, and two third prizes of the BUA-level Teaching Achievement Award. Besides, it has served as the associate editor-in-chiefs or co-editors of four national-level planning textbooks, five provincial and ministerial-level planning textbooks, two Beijing high-quality textbooks and supporting textbooks, one bioengineering series planning textbook (case edition), as well as six other professional textbooks.
Talent Cultivation: At present, the college has more than 680 undergraduate students majoring in Food Science and Engineering, Food Quality and Safety, and Brewing Engineering, as well as over 160 Master candidates in Food Science and Engineering and Food Processing and Safety.
The college emphasizes the training of practical skills, and has established four on-campus practice bases for wine production, fruit and vegetable juice production, dairy production, as well as food raw material production. Moreover, the college has set up 30 off-campus industry-university-research bases and three professor workstations through cooperation with the Innovative Food Branch of Beijing Shunxin Agriculture Development Group Co., Ltd., Beijing Sanyuan Dairy Co., Ltd., Beijing Deqingyuan Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Fifth Meat Factory, Beijing Liubiju Food Co., Ltd., Beijing Redleaf Wine Co., Ltd., Beijing Qingfeng Wanxing Food Technology R&D Co., Ltd., Beijing Vica Group Co., Ltd., Beijing Kwinbon Biotechnology Co., Ltd., the Inspection and Quarantine Technology Center of Beijing Import and Export Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, Tongzhou District Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing Physical and Chemical Analysis Center, etc. Among them, Beijing Redleaf Wine Co., Ltd. has been rated as Beijing municipal excellent off-campus talent cultivation base.
For the past few years, the college has endeavoured to organize various kinds of professional competitions for the students to help them improve their professional and comprehensive qualities. Besides holding food festivals for ten consecutive years, it has also carried out new-entrant oath-taking and other integrity and industry education activities. The college received the third prize of the National “Panpan Food Cup” Bakery Creative Contest and the honorary titles of the Best Entrepreneurial Team and the Excellent Entrepreneurial Team in the “Mengfanji Cup” International Innovation and Entrepreneurship Contest for College Students. Other outstanding achievements made by the college also include the third prize in the Beijing Entrepreneurship Design Competition for College Students, the gold prize in the “Creating Youth” Capital College Students’ Entrepreneurship Competition, the bronze prize in the National College Students’ Entrepreneurship Competition, the third prize in the Capital “Challenge Cup” College Students’ Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Works Competition, etc.
The number of the graduates entering for master examination has been increasing year by year, and their one-time employment rate has remained stable at a high level, higher than the average level of Beijing in the past five years. The graduates are widely employed for the technical or management work in multiple industries, covering government food inspection units, food inspection and quarantine departments, food processing enterprises, food and beverage management enterprises, and so on. Among them, there are many famous enterprises, such as the municipal and district health authorities of Beijing, Beijing Customs, PepsiCo Foods (China) Co., Ltd., Uni-president, Cadbury Food Co., Ltd., Yum! Brands, Inc., Beijing Huatian Catering Holding Group, Beijing Air Catering Co., Ltd., Beijing Sanyuan Foods Co., Ltd., etc. The graduates of our college are widely praised by employers for their down-to-earth attitude and strong sense of job responsibility, and many of them have become the backbones of their units.
