The Key Laboratory of Cold Chain Food Processing and Safety Control, Ministry of Education (hereinafter referred to as the "Laboratory") was cultivated and built upon approval by the Ministry of Education in 2023 (JKXS [2023] No. 18). The Laboratory is established under the support of Henan's featured backbone discipline group of Food Science and Engineering and the doctoral degree authorization program of the ‌first-level discipline of Food Science and Engineering at Zhengzhou University of Light Industry and on the basis of Henan Key Laboratory of Cold Chain Food Quality and Safety Control. To meet the major national strategic requirements for food safety and people's health, the Laboratory offers three research fields, including cold chain food processing theory and technology, cold chain food safety hazards identification and detection, and smart cold chain and safety control. It is committed to building itself into an influential scientific research base for cold chain food processing and safety control, a scientific and technological innovation base, a talent cultivation base, and a high-level academic exchange base at home and abroad.

The Laboratory now has 54 regular staff; 13 doctoral supervisors; and more than 20 high-level talents, including the candidates for the New Century National Hundred, Thousand and Ten Thousand Talent Project, New Century Excellent Talent Support Program of the Ministry of Education, Central Plains Scholars, Central Plains Science and Technology Innovation Leading Talents, and Technical and Academic Leaders of Henan. Among them, 73% have a senior professional title, 64% are 45 years old or below, 99% hold a doctoral degree, and 42% possess overseas experiences. Therefore, the Laboratory boasts a high-quality scientific research team with a reasonable structure of professional titles, ages, academic qualification, and academic backgrounds. Over the past three years, the Laboratory has published 154 SCI papers (including ten ESI highly cited papers), authorized 26 invention patents, and issued 14 academic works; undertaken 46 national research projects, 73 provincial research projects, and 38 horizontal research projects; participated in the formulation of four national/industry standards, and received 19 awards at provincial and ministerial levels or above; successively hosted or organized eight domestic/international academic conferences, with more than 180 person-times of regular staff attending international/national academic exchange conferences and 21 person-times of academic reports delivered; and successively invited domestic and international experts to conduct academic exchanges, with 21 person-times of academic reports delivered.

The Laboratory has more than 6,000 square meters of scientific research space. The large-scale instruments and equipment, worth about RMB 45 million in total, primarily encompass the 600 MHz superconducting nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, cold field emission scanning electron microscope, triple quadrupole - tandem ion trap mass spectrometer, high-performance liquid chromatography - high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer, high-resolution laser confocalmicro-Raman spectrometer, and laser scanning confocal microscope. Theysupport the research on relevant processing, safety detection, and control technologies, including the physicochemical properties, quality analysis, microorganisms, and hazards of cold chain food.

Highlighting the major needs in the field of cold chain food processing and safety control, the Laboratory endeavors to make landmark breakthroughs in the basic theories and critical technologies restricting cold chain food processing and safety, thereby safeguarding people's lives and health. In addition, the Laboratory bolsters original and integrated innovation, aligns itself with the construction standards of national key laboratories, and spares no effort to build a benchmark disciplinary platform that serves national strategies and embodies regional characteristics, with a view to rendering intellectual support for the construction of a national innovation hub in Henan.