The School of Food Science and Engineering (SFSE) was established newly in 2015 through the reorganization of the School of Light Industry and Food Science, however, its history can be dated back to 1952, when the newly established South China Institute of Technology was the first in the country to set up two undergraduate programs, namely Sugar Engineering and Food Engineering. The first degree program of the School, Sugar and Food Engineering, was started to run at that time.
Nowadays, the school has two doctoral degree programs in Food Science and Engineering and Light Industry Technology and Engineering (participating), as well as a professional doctoral degree program in Biology and Medicine. It also has a postdoctoral research station in Food Science and Engineering. The school offers three undergraduate programs: Food Science and Engineering, Food Quality and Safety, and Food Nutrition and Health. The Food Science and Engineering and Food Quality and Safety programs were respectively selected as national first-class undergraduate programs in 2019 and 2020. The Food Science and Engineering major has passed the IFT international professional certification and engineering education professional certification.
In 2022, the Food Science and Engineering discipline was included in the new round of the national Double First-Class construction list. In the US News ranking of the Food Science and Technology discipline field, it has ranked first in the world for two consecutive years (2022, 2023). The agricultural science mainly supported by the school has entered the ESI global top 0.118‰ (2025).
Now the school has 124 staffs in total, including 99 faculties. Among them, there are 53 professors, and more than 98% of the faculty members own Ph.D degree. The School has 14 national-level talent title staff; 15 Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers and Elsevier China Highly Cited Scientists, with 49 individuals selected in Elsevier's global top 2% scientist lifetime list. Twenty-five staff are serving as editors-in-chief, associate editors, or editorial board members of mainstream international journals.
The School has established over 20 national and provincial-level research platforms, including the International Science and Technology Cooperation Base for Tropical Health Foods, the National Engineering Research Centre for Wheat and Corn Processing (co-established), member of the National Dairy Technology Innovation Centre, the International Cooperation Base for Molecular Enzymology and Engineering, the Ministry of Education Engineering Research Centre for Starch and Plant Protein, and the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Green Processing and Product Safety of Natural Products, etc.
The School persists in the scientific research and technological innovation, as well as the industrialization of new technology. Its researches are funded by National, provincial/ministry foundations and the enterprises. In the past five years, a total of 20 science and technology awards at the national, provincial and ministerial, and industry association levels have been received, with an annual research fund over 90 million yuan, more than 90 national invention patents were granted, and over 500 papers were published in major indexing databases, and the number of citations of SCI papers ranked the first place among national food colleges and universities.
The School takes the student education as the primary task and provides perfect environment for personal development of every student. Now, in total of over 1500 students, including more than 1000 graduates are studying in the school. Students actively participated in various technological competitions. In recent years, they have won over 50 awards at the national level or above.
The School has extensive communication and cooperation with many top-level oversea universities and research institutes, established various types of joint training programs with several top international universities. The school has launched an all-English master's program in Food Science and Engineering and set up all-English teaching courses in the field of food nutrition and health. Foreign teachers give lectures and teachers/students go abroad for further studies. International conferences and cooperative research exchanges are frequent and close. The internationalization process of the school is constantly advancing.
