CEECFOODS network on food composition has been established as a result of joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations}European Cooperation in the "eld of Scienti"c and Technical Research (FAO}COST) Action 99/EURO-FOODS activity.
The background for this activity was given at the First FAO-Food Research Institute Bratislava (FRI) Meeting on Food Composition Activities in Eastern Europe, held in Modra, Slovakia in 1995, in which 13 Central and Eastern European countries took part. Participants in the meeting recommended the establishment of a sub-regional network on food composition. Two years later with the help of the FAO Subregional O$ce for Europe (FAO-SEUR) and INFOODS, a workshop on the creation of a subregional technical cooperation network on food composition for Central and Eastern European countries was held in Budapest, Hungary, in 1997. During this workshop, which was attended by participants from seven countries of the subregion, a technical cooperation network on food composition for Central and Eastern European countries, with the acronym CEECFOODS, was established.
The main tasks are:
E To provide a network of national data centres for promoting and expanding future food composition activities. E To organize an administrative framework for various task forces on speci"c issues. E To generate a repository of national food databases. E To promote national food composition programmes. E To provide a system for collection and dissemination of information in the area of food composition.