Department of Industrial Engineering
4207 Bell Engineering Center
1 University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR 72701
Phone: (479) 575-3156
Fax: (479) 575-8431
Researchers at the University of Arkansas Partner with Researchers in China to Improve Food Safety
Supply chains are incredibly complex, and are only becoming more so, with raw ingredients
and part-processed foods zig-zagging across countries and continents before being
offered as finished products to shoppers. Researchers from the University of Arkansas
in collaboration with South China Agricultural University, China Agricultural University,
Zhejiang University and Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences are working to monitor
and develop control strategies to better mitigate causes of contamination in Chinese
poultry supply chains with funding provided by the Walmart Foundation.
China is the world’s second largest producer and consumer of poultry, making food safety in this area a high priority for government, industry and consumers. A team of researchers from the Department of Industrial Engineering, led by associate professor, Chase Rainwater and department head, Ed Pohl, are contributing to this international research collaboration by offering risk assessment approaches toward assessing salmonella in China ‘from farm to fork’.
In fall 2018, the research team completed a quantitative risk assessment model, incorporating salmonella contamination from the breeder, through production, to transportation/distribution and finally to the consumer. This work, completed in collaboration with professor Wen Wang’s research group at Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was presented in November of 2017 at Hangzhou, China, and to an international audience at the Society for Risk Analysis Conference in Alexandria, VA in December 2017. The research team will travel to Beijing in June 2018 to discuss their progress in developing a real-time risk assessment approach using machine learning techniques.