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The importance of harmonizing food composition data across Europe

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 61, pages 813–821 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective:

To examine the role of food composition data in Europe in four sectors, namely health, trade regulation and legislation, agriculture and the environment.

Results:

The need for further harmonization of data across Europe is clearly identified and evidenced from a number of previous successful European collaborations.

Conclusions:

Data on the nutritional composition of foods are essential for a broad spectrum of activities, including public health nutrition, research, the food industry and government policy development and implementation. With the expansion of the European Union and the concomitant increase in cross border trade and cooperation harmonizing food composition data becomes a more important issue than ever. Harmonization is not solely a technical issue, but also involves creating durable and sustainable structures to maintain the viability of the data. These are some of the issues currently being addressed by the European Food Information Resource Network of Excellence.

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Acknowledgements

This work was completed on behalf of the European Food Information Resource Consortium and funded under the EU 6th Framework Food Quality and Safety Programme, project number FP6-513944. We thank Susan Church for reviewing the text of this report.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health Research Centre, School of Human Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK

    M B Egan, A Fragodt, M M Raats & C Hodgkins

  2. School of Management, Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health Research Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK

    M Lumbers

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  1. M B Egan
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  2. A Fragodt
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  3. M M Raats
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  4. C Hodgkins
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Correspondence to M M Raats.

Additional information

Contributors: MBE was responsible for writing of the manuscript. AF, MMR, CH and ML provided significant advice regarding manuscript structure and were responsible for revision of the manuscript.

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Egan, M., Fragodt, A., Raats, M. et al. The importance of harmonizing food composition data across Europe. Eur J Clin Nutr 61, 813–821 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602823

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