"Going Global and Bringing in" - Enhancing the Core Competitiveness of the Additive Branch: A Record of the East China Region Industry-Academia-Research Inspection and Exchange

Following the release of the document No. 13 (Agriculture Office Medical [2018] 13) titled "Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Carrying Out the Pilot Work of Reducing the Use of Veterinary Antibiotics" by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on April 20, 2018, recent social media circles have been flooded with promotional advertisements for additive products such as acidifiers, probiotics, plant extracts, and essential oils. Against this backdrop, the Additive Branch, adhering to the concept of "pursuing excellence and breaking through innovation," sent representatives to participate in the "East China Region Industry-Academia-Research Exchange Meeting" organized by the Guangdong Province Industry-Academia-Research Cooperation Promotion Association. The event lasted for five days (April 23-27), visiting Zhejiang University, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Jiangnan University, and the China Internet of Things Research and Development Center. They conducted inspection tours of the Information and Electronic Engineering College Laboratory of Zhejiang University, the intelligent warehousing and smart logistics R&D platform of Hangzhou Dianzi University, the traceability code project of Oracle Super Code Technology Co., Ltd., the National Engineering Research Center for Functional Food (Ministry of Science and Technology), the National Engineering Laboratory for Cereal Fermentation Process and Technology, and the Advanced Control Laboratory of Light Industry Process of the Ministry of Education at Jiangnan University. In-depth discussions were held on issues such as product traceability, transportation anti-theft, probiotic functionality and fermentation technology, post-processing technology of additive products, and the market and development of pet diets.

The deepest impression from this "going out" experience was "how fast the world is developing!" The Internet of Things has been widely applied to economic crops such as vegetables, fruits, bamboo shoots, rice, and various industries such as brewing and breeding. "Traceability" has moved from the altar to the common people's vegetable markets; the logistics process has achieved full monitoring and real-time alarms; collision avoidance technology for people and vehicles has been applied to forklifts shuttling in the workshop, which can intelligently avoid production accidents; new types of spectrophotometers can read the fingerprint spectrum of substances within 60 seconds, eliminating the need for complex wet chemical databases... In this beautiful Jiangnan city with clear mountains and waters and swaying willows, I can only spell "O-U-T" over and over again in my heart.

At Jiangnan University, we had an in-depth exchange with Professor Zhang from the School of Life Sciences on three specific directions and content: the elimination method of antigenic proteins in fermented soybean meal, the development direction of feed deodorizing probiotic products, and the development direction of alternative antibiotic probiotic products; we also had an in-depth exchange with Professor Chen from the School of Food Science on the development direction, formulation, and production process of pet diets and pet chews.

The horn of great power brands has sounded. The General Secretary, when investigating the Yangtze River basin, used the Three Gorges Project as an example, stating that "the real great power heavy equipment must be in our own hands. Core technologies and key technologies cannot be obtained by begging." The defeat of the Shanghai Shenhua team without foreign aid also verified the words of the General Secretary, and it also inspires us to innovate from the source, constantly enriching our minds with these new things, new insights, and new methods, and transforming them into practical production, fundamentally achieving "bringing in".