Welcome to another edition of eChook!
Firstly, I’d like to congratulate Sonia Liu for winning the Poultry CRC Student Presentation Award at the recent Australian Poultry Science Symposium. Sonia Yun Liu is undertaking her PhD in poultry nutrition at the University of Sydney under the auspices of Professor Aaron Cowieson.
Secondly, we will highlight our Program 3 – Safe and Quality Food Production in this edition. Our Program Manager, Dr Pat Blackall, explains how industry is working hard and taking a lead role in minimising food safety risks associated with poultry products. It is worth noting that in addition to the Poultry CRC research in food safety and quality, both the egg and chicken meat sectors of the Australian poultry industry have a great track record of research in food safety and active public awareness campaigns to educate the public about safe food handling practices.
I am delighted to announce the release of our educational game, Egg Grab’n’Grade, in the Apple app store. This game requires players to grade different types of eggs as they pass through the grading floor – quite a challenge! After months of development and testing, the CRC is over the moon with the finished product. Best of all, the game is available for free in the app store (Australia only). So please go and give it a test run if you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod.
Finally, the PoultryGrad Workshop is worth a good mention. This annual CRC event is designed to allow our postgraduates, post-docs and industry interns to interact with each other and with industry. PoultryGrad 2013 was held in Melbourne this week, and we were extremely fortunate to have the expertise of renowned science communicator Julian Cribb and his colleagues to teach our researchers presentation and media skills. I enjoyed the session immensely as it was so entertaining and informative. Added to this experience were the hands-on demonstration sessions at Ridley AgriProducts and Zoetis (formerly Pfizer Animal Health). Everyone appreciated seeing how commercial companies use science and how those companies’ processes relate to what our researchers are doing in their studies and research work. So a huge thank you to the staff of Ridley and Zoetis for generously giving their time and making their facilities available for us to visit!
Regards, Mingan
