The 6th European Young Cereal Scientists and Technologists Workshop was held at the “Les Cyclades” conference center, Montpellier–La Grande Motte, France, April 30–May 2, 2007. In total, 70 participants from Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Finland, Hungary, France, Austria, Turkey, Canada, UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands participated at this workshop, which took place on the days preceding the C&E Spring Meeting 2007, also held in Montpellier.

The workshop gathered Ph.D. students, young professionals, and senior scientists working in the field of cereal science and technology. With 35 oral communications and 11 poster presentations, on topics such as new methods, rheology and structure-function, product quality, cereal components, breeding and biotechnology, and ingredient functionality, the program covered quite a broad range of areas and many animated discussions were instigated.

For the first time since the creation of this workshop in 2002, three awards, sponsored by Danone Biscuits and Cereal Foods Division, were given to encourage and promote the high quality of the presentations. The awards went to Frédéric Auger (INRA-SupAgro), Evi Croes (K.U. Leuven), and Andrea Uhrin (Agr.Res.Institute–Hungarian Academy of Science) for their outstanding work. This special sponsorship by Danone underlines the importance of cereals research and the appreciation of the industry for the high scientific quality of this workshop.

On the first day, the group visited the Royal Canin pet food factory, which produces extruded feeds for dogs and cats. Everybody appreciated the visit of the quality department, the factory, and especially the kennels.

One night, our local hosts guided the group on a walking tour through the wonderful city of Montpellier. The well-documented, extensive walk, of course, had to end in the pub!

The members of the AACC International Board of Directors joined the students for the traditional workshop dinner on the last night. Following the dinner, an “international” musical quiz and a dance party made for the cherry on the pie!

The local organizers, all students of INRA-SupAgro, Montpellier, did not spare any efforts to prepare for this informal and friendly meeting. Many new friendships were born during our time in La Grande Motte! With the beach of the Mediterranean Sea just around the corner and a bar and a restaurant on-site, all the ingredients were present to make for an unforgettable couple of days.

Thank you to Joël, Frédéric, Youna, Nassima, Maud, Milena, Abderrahmane, Virginie, Peter, Gerry and Hilde—and to the attendees of the workshop!! Without everyone’s enthusiasm this wouldn’t have been possible. Thank you all!!!

The 7th Workshop will be held at the Kaunas University of Technology in Kaunas, Lithuania. Be there!

Frédéric Auger is a Ph.D. student at Montpellier SupAgro. He has a master’s in food science from AgroParisTech, Massy, France, and he has been studying the agglomeration of wheat proteins (with Tate&Lyle) since 2004. Auger can be reached at augerf@supagro.inra.fr.