Day 38

Thursday,

It the most memorable moment we have in Hong Kong, Was our last day in school attending the module, Food Sensory Evaluation. Descriptive tasting test is begin carried out. Samples that we tried on are thousand islands, grapes syrupy and chocolate cookies. It basically to employ objective methods to collect their subjective sensory responses or changes to the product. To conclude, we stress that sensory not only plays an important role in R&D functions, but also play so in QA functions and marketing functions in industrial structures.

Before we leave, we bid goodbye to our classmate, lecturer. We took some photos for memory. Then we request for early dismissal to visit the Hong Kong health promoting center by Mr Ng. For Mr Ng, we feel really touch and appreciated by him as he just bought three of us though with his busy schedule and because of us wanting us to learn more about the food industry/ legislations in Hong Kong, he cancels his practical and theory class just to bring us there. Unfortunately, the center is closed but lucky the center is located at one of the biggest park, Kowloon Park. The park too consists of mecums, mini bird park, indoor/outdoor swimming pool and indoor stadium. Beside that he also bought us to a multi-purpose food centre where it includes sports house, wet market, hawker centre and environmental center which take charge of the monitoring the cleanliness of the food centre.

Mr Ng too introduces us to his ex-colleague in the environmental center. We have a short conversation with one of the hygiene officer discussing the differences between Singapore and Hong Kong management, measures on food hygiene and future aspect in here.

We have our dinner at Mong Kok one of the famous district in Hong Kong then back to hostel to pack our luggage and schedule for next day programs.

Day 37

Today we went for Management of food safety lecture, we talk about the procedures in taking food sampling. What are the difference type sealing of sample, official seal ,seal wax, butane gas, blow torch, seal clamp, seal lead beads, copper wire, adhesive seal and polythene plastic bags. Seal wax and seal clamp are the two ways of sealing used by Hong Kong, Centre of food safety. After lesson, Mr Ng ask us whether we would like to visit the Hong Kong food safety centre tomorrow and we believe that it is a good opportunity thus we will be join the Hong Kong Students!


So before we go back to Singapore, we got 2 visiting trips to go! One is to the food safety centre another one is to a supermarket logistic centre!

Day 36

Today we have our test for Management of Food Safety. How shall i say .... should i say that its hard ?? or should i say that its alright!!! Well we did study for our test OK we study till 3am last night !! Our test is all written in essay type 400 to 500 wordsfor 2 hours and i think i might not pass the test . hahahah

For tomorrow we have lesson on Management of Food Safety again =/ so we have to sleep early tonight due to the last night shift of studying haha

Day 35

Last lecturer on Sensory Evaluation of food, coincidently lesson is begin extend from one to two hour. A total for four calculating methods on food sensory is begin introduce. They are the Fisher’s LSD (Least Significant Difference) test that requires you to do some multiple-comparison test to actually differ the samples from each other. Correlation and Linear Regression is to determine if the correlation is positive or negative, strong or weak.Wilconxon test is a non-parametric statistical hypothesis test for the case of two related samples or repeated measurements on a single sample and lastly the R-Index aim is to measure the degree of difference between two product.

Right after class, with have a short discussion with Ms Fong our GEP-HK in charge. As is our last week here, she graded our logbook accordingly on performance and conduct. We did a round-up for our Mainland China trip and also talk about the students in Hong Kong and Singapore. As the weather here are turning cold, she’s worry that we’re unable to adapt with it and ask if we need any jacket because she will like to buy for us but we are too shy to accept our offer.

We’re required to sit for a test tomorrow for Management of Food Safety.

So,

That’s all for now.

Day 32,33,34

We will start to talk about Friday, Saturday then Sunday.

Friday & Saturday
Friday we went to Zhong Shan City in Guang Zhou, China with the Hong Kong students for a 2 day 1 night Food Industry visit organise by Hong Kong Food Council ( Like Our SFMA) . We manage to visit a beverages factory, a government food analysis laboratory, a technical education school, a food trading fair and attend a food safety seminar.

We meet at 7.30am at the pier and took a 1 hr 40min ferry to Zhong Shan City. Once we arrived we took a bus to the beverages factory, along the streets there are many banners to welcome visitor to the town as the town is hosting China International Food Trading Fair 2008. Food manufacturing is the biggest industry in the town, thus at most every there you can see some food manufacturing company.

Juice drink is the main product for the beverages factory, the is very big and from what I know China’s food manufacturing plant is very big and most of them is has only one story as China had plenty of land for them to use . However to me their manufacturing process isn’t good, for an example during the filling of juice to the bottle the work did not wear any gloves. And the equipment is quite old and rusty, I felt that it is not suitable to use for food manufacturing purpose.

After visit the factory we went to guang zhou province, zhong shan city food testing laboratory, we visit the difference laboratory they have and currently they are doing some testing on food product for melamine level. We saw some equipment that our school also have! Like GC, HLPC etc. Soon we when for lunch.

After lunch we went to a technical school to visit their food analysis course, the school is very traditional and their teaching medium is Chinese. When I went to visit one of the lesson, I saw that the teacher use Chinese to write on the broad the SOP for titration and the chemical name for each chemical! After the visit we when for dinner then back to hotel! It is quite danger to walk around in china at night thus we went for spa in hotel!!

Next day after breakfast in hotel, we went for the food trading fair cum food fair there are lots of food stall just like what we always have in Singapore. Manage to see and taste different type of china cuisine! Soon we went to a seminar on food safety, in the seminar they talk about the different food safety system that the food manufacturing can use like HACCP, ISO 2200, BRC, IFC etc.

As we got to rush for our ferry so we left the seminar half-way. Took a ferry back to HK, reached HK about 8pm, through this trip we met a lot of friends from year 1 as normally our HK are form year 3.

Sunday
We stay in hostel to do our report and study for our up coming Test!

( THIS BLOG IS WRITEN AT 1AM, WHEN WE ARE ABOUT TO SLP. IF ANY MISTAKE PLS UNDERSTAND !!)

Day 31

We went for sensory evaluation of food practical class, we did Hedomic Scale, Food Action Rating Scale and Ranking test. Our product is Ketcup, Peanuts butter and Jelly. The class is diveled into 4 group and we are invited to be the panlist. After the lesson, we learn how to set up this 3 test and what are the apparatus we need.

Day 30

Attended lecture Management on Food Safety at 1130. Today was our last lecture before taking the test. Basically today lesson was a continue from yesterday lecture, sampling plan. On why samples test is begin conducted, the legislation in Hong Kong for sampling test and the authorities doing sampling test on particular products. Ah Sir, the lecturer, too shows us some sampling tools in live where we only get to see in pictures over at Singapore. So far, we have not attended any practical class on this module but I’ll say we’re lucky to have it though is our first and also the last practical for this just before we leave.

For next few weeks till we leave, we will be cracking on our 1000 words reports and taking test that mentioned above.

Anyway, grates Barack Obama for winning his seat.

That all for now.

Day 29

We went for Management of Food safety lesson, we when to find Ms Vicki Fong to pass her our regisration form for a food factory visit to China. Mostlikely we will be going for the visit with HK students on 7 & 8 Nov. Today we study about sampling plan. Sampling plan is a systematic way to assess the microbiological quality of food lots. We learn about the values of n,c,m & M, this is an revision for us as we had studied before in SG. Soon Mr Ng give a case to study :

Sampling Plan A - n = 10, c = 3
Sampling Plan B - n = 20, c = 3

which plan is better? We have some discuss with the class, ouur conclusion is plan B is much more suitable as every 10 sample we only allow 1.5 to pass. Thereas in plan A every 10 sample we allow 3 to pass. Plan B can produce high food safety product. After our lesson we went back to hostel as we got a report to rush!


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