Expert consultations

Purpose

Expert consultations provide an opportunity to bring together experts on a particular topic from around the world to review scientific information and elaborate advice. FAO has been convening consultations since 1949 on nutrient and energy requirements as well as on specific nutrients in foods, which is being enlarged to include food composition harmonising issues.

FAO is publishing food composition tables since 1949 and is since 1998 hosting the INFOODS (International Network of Food Data Systems) coordination. INFOODS with their regional branches is one of the initiatives, which since 1982 is actively involved to harmonize procedures for better data comparability and interchange. They work closely together with many international and national institutes and initiatives. This collaboration has advanced the harmonization of food composition data in several fields: analytical methods, nutrient nomenclature, definitions and mode of expression, food nomenclature, description, terminology and classification, and database management and interchange. However, divergence is still existing leading to uncomparable data at international level. Therefore, expert consultations are convened to critically review the work that has been undertaken, to provide advice on how to complete and improve the work and to make the scientific information available to potential users, as it becomes available. The outcome of the expert consultations will be published within a couple of months and will provide a summary of the food composition harmonisation work that was undertaken.