The FAO food composition initiative

Over the past few years, a number of events and influences have re-emphasized the importance of food composition work. The December 1992 International Conference on Nutrition (ICN) called for increased attention to improved nutrition and examined this topic in a broad way, considering improved food production, processing, marketing and, most importantly, access for all to adequate supplies of food that is safe and of good quality. The ICN emphasized improved policies and programmes for food, nutrition, health care and education, From the operational point of view, the ICN, through the World Declaration on Nutrition and the Plan of Action for Nutrition endorsed by the 159 participating nations, called for each country to prepare comprehensive national plans of action for nutrition, which are to include the strengthening of food composition work.

Furthermore, the need for food composition information has grown as a result of new legislation in the developed countries requiring that foods have accurate nutrition labelling as well as the recognition by the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) of the international standards of the FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission as the benchmark for foods in international trade, In addition, consumers in all countries want more detailed information about raw and processed purchased foods. Food composition information also continues to serve traditional uses in schools and institutional feeding programmes as well as in food technology and nutrition programmes.

At the international level, FAO has a long and successful history of producing and disseminating food composition tables and related information. FAO started its activities in this field in the late 1940s; its first food composition table was published in 1949. In the 1960s and 1970s, FAO prepared regional food composition tables for Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Near East, After this popular series of publications was completed in the late 1970s, FAO reduced its work in this area, In the 1980s, the United Nations University (UNU) responded to interest in further work on food composition by establishing the International Network of Food Data Systems (INFOODS).