Organized by Professor Steven Feng Chen of the College of Engineering, the Global Chinese Health (Functional) Food Symposium 2013 was successfully held at Peking University on August 27th-28th. More than 200 experts and scholars in this field got together, including Prof. Baoguo Sun, member of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Prof. Suhe Meng, President of Chinese  Institute of Food Science and Technology, and Prof. Meng-Tsan Chiang, President of Health Food Society of Taiwan. Prof. Dongxiao Zhang, Dean of College of Engineering of Peking University participated and spoke at the opening ceremony.

The Global Chinese Health (Functional) Food Symposium is a biannually event which has been successfully held for five times,  and has greatly promoted the development of functional food research among Chinese scientists.

With theme "Functional Food, Dietary Nutrition and Human Health", the 2013 conference attracted attention from over one hundred of universities, enterprises and research institutions in China, and received more than 150  abstracts. The Abstract Book includes not only the  reviews from renowned scholars, but also research findings from young scholars. The symposium was supported by Journal of the Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology (EI included) and Food & Function (SCI included).

“The general belief of ‘medicine and food homology’ of Chinese people has generated great recognition and demand for the health food industry in China. The improvement of people's quality of life brings increasing consumption of health food year by year. I hope the symposium could help lay a solid scientific basis for the industry, develop a sound system of law and regulation, and rebuild consumers’ trust on the whole health food industry,” said Suhe Meng at the opening ceremony.

During the symposium, the attendees shared their latest research findings in their field, highlighting new resources, new perspectives, new approaches and new trends. Topics of discussion included research on key physiological active ingredients of specific plants, the chemoprevention of functional food targeting certain diseases, as well as the current status of health food technology registration. The attendees agreed that the functionalization of ordinary food will be a hot area of potential growth.

At the closing ceremony, Professor Steven Feng Chen thanked the participants from home and abroad for their involvement and made a summary of the event. “Invited speeches are generally systematic, introducing not only new technologies and new methods in the in-depth exploration of functional factor mechanism of food, but also a considerable research outcome that has been transferred to products. In addition, some research is not only focused on the characterization of functional factors, but also on the use of advanced technologies such as embedding and self-assembly to improve the use efficiency by the body. I think the symposium will play a positive role in safeguarding the national health and life improvement,” said Chen.

In order to encourage young scholars’ research initiative, the meeting also set up a special Poster Award of the Functional Food Society of the Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology, four poster presentations finally received the award after a careful screening. Attendees agreed that the symposium is of high quality and reward. They looked forward to the next meeting in Taiwan.

Steven Chen, renowned experts and the Poster Award winners