Wednesday morning started off bright and early with a wake up call at 6:30 am. We quickly ate breakfast and headed onto the bus. We had a long ride to our destination, but everyone was able to sleep on the bus. Our first stop was at Fucheng Dairy, where we met the farm manager, Mr. Li. When we arrived it looked similar to a campus or a small fair with multiple exhibition buildings. We first got the chance to walk through a small dairy museum, learning about organic cattle feed and infant milk. Next we moved into a cattle barn where we saw a cow getting a massage. It was really neat to learn that the farmers try so hard to keep their cows happy. We proceeded into a building where we were able to see a line of cows getting milked through a viewing window. Walking back to the museum side of the dairy farm, we stopped in an ice cream shop! Ice cream was on sale for great prices, and our class was able to enjoy all the different variety of flavors. On the last stop of our tour, we were able to see calves, sheep, and deer, in the Children's play area. It reminded our group of a petting zoo. As a few of the research groups were interviewing the farmers, we got a chance to let out our inner child and play on the playground.

Our next stop was the Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd.  Upon arrival we took a break in their conference room to enjoy a quick lunch which consisted of classical Chinese snacks including coconut buns, different flavored Lays potato chips (eg. “Italian red meat, lime, and Texas BBQ,” and various fruits. Our favorite part of lunch was Oreos because they taste just like ours at home! We already miss our western foods, so it was nice to eat something we recognized.

Mr. Hui (Sam) Huang of sales and marketing presented a lecture on the history of the company as well as the future outlook. He focused on innovation explaining the unique marketing strategy for the younger generations including energy drinks and coffee flavored drinks. The company wants to foster the slogan "New Huiyuan, New Journey," after its recent 22nd anniversary. During Q&A, Sam provided the food safety and orange juice groups with valuable insight for their research projects. Our group, the orange juice group, benefitted a lot from this part of the meeting. We learned that Huiyuaun is a completely vertically integrated company, from the farmer to the shelf. The company has two factories, one for juice and one to make concentrated orange juice. Sam explained that 2014 has been a big year for Huiyuan, as they partnered with an advertising company called Ogilvy to update their advertising and marketing approaches. Next, we visited the juice processing floor of the factory through windows and later went the Huiyuan market where we were able to purchase their fruit juices. We tried orange, peach, and grape juice.

After Huiyuan, we went to a traditional Chinese silk factory and museum where were able to see how silk product such as blankets, pillowcases, and scarves were made from worm to loom to finished product.  Some of us were even able to do a little shopping, but it was quite expensive silk because of its authenticity. Next we headed to the pearl market where everyone was able to experience the intense bargaining market for “knockoff goods. “ At the pearl market everyone was running around 5 different floors separated by a central escalator system trying to get the best prices for the bags, jewelry, sunglasses, shoes, watches, and jewelry that they wanted to buy. Almost every time we would end up paying less than half the original quoted price, so we consider ourselves experienced negotiators.

At the end of a long and eventful day we had dinner at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC was a lot different in China than in the United States. We were unable to order the food for ourselves so our guide, Carl, ordered for us. To our surprise, the fries from KFC tasted better to us than the fries from McDonalds we had tried the night before. Overall, the dinner was very fulfilling and tasty. We came back to the hotel to shower and headed to bed for a good night's rest.

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