It's a government-supported scientific research center dedicated to food quality testing and inspection, so you might be able to make an argument that at some point in the future some of the methods and products they have developed might well be used by some other agency in a way that is somehow conneected with the Beijing Olympics or perhaps future Olympics.
Fun stuff, great video. Men and women hovering over test-tubes, people in surgical masks doing unknown things very delicately. Many earnest, young doctors just researching to beat the food-borne illness band.
No, they're not testing the food headed for the athletes' village. No, they're not developing methods of testing that will be applied to the food going to the athletes' village. No, they really have nothing to do right now today in any direct way with the upcoming Olympics.
And no, we still haven't figured out exactly why we were there as part of our pre-Olympic tour.
Our cheerful and efficient tour-guides told us somebody told them it would be a great place for the next group of foreign journalists to take a look at and we were lucky enough to be the next grout in the pipeline.
Oh. The lab-coats. We got to wear them.