As summarised below, 68 manufacturers were selected for the 2006 update of the database. These were chosen according to the foods most commonly consumed by the Dutch population. Also some particular food groups that needed to be updated were selected. Some manufacturers were asked to provide data on all foods produced and others were asked for data on a selection of products.

Letters were sent to these companies of which 40 agreed to participate, 10 did not reply and 18 did not wish to be involved. Reasons given for declining involvement included the work being too time consuming and not being a priority. Of the 40 companies who responded positively, 36 (90%) returned their data before the deadline.

Industrial data update 2005
• Manufacturers selected	68
• Positive responses	40
• Negative responses	18
• No response	10
• New / updated data received within deadline:	36
• No data received	4
• Number of food items involved	1260
• Telephone calls / e-mails per manufacturer	2-5

The food industry and distribution sectors provide nutritional information for the online database in their own format which is then entered manually. Each company signs a contract of participation, taking responsibility for the data they deliver. A small participation fee is charged for each product entered but the companies have free access to the database in return. Other users (dietitians, doctors, schools and consumers) pay a small annual fee for use of the database. Data is currently held on over 3500 products, 2500 of which are branded and this is updated almost every week.

Industry collaborates with Nubel because it receives a number of benefits. Scientific feedback on the nutritional values it provides is given and the Scientific Council validates the data, which is distributed to schools and consumers. In addition, their collaboration with Nubel provides a platform for discussion with governmental and consumer groups.

Italy

Food composition data is produced by the Unit of Food Chemistry, at the Italian National Institute for Research on Food and Nutrition (INRAN). Unlike the previous examples where FCDB operators have requested data from industry, INRAN obtains data through in-house chemical analysis. There are various contexts in which this is done:

Agreements with producers or consumer organisations; there have been agreements with a number of organisations in Italy to update compositional information on meat products including Italian salamis, bovine meat and poultry. There have also been projects to look at the composition of milk cheese and eggs.

Analytical requests by companies; this may be supported by the food industry or food manufacturers’ organisations and tends to focus on specific foods.

Analytical requests by official organisations; usually aimed at evaluating typical/ local primary foods. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture requested data on the composition of cherry tomatoes from Sicily.

National, European and International research projects with special interests. These include:

·             ‘Markers for the definition and improvement of the quality of the salami from south Italy’, where data on the composition of typical Italian salami was gathered. This was commissioned by the Operative Multiregional Programme (POM) and supported by the EU (1998-2001).

·             ‘Folate: from food to functionality and optimal health’. The folate content of foods was analysed, supported by the EU (2000-2004).

·             ‘Pulses: characterisation, nutritional quality and utilisation of different varieties’. Data on the composition of fresh and dried pulses and new products were obtained. This was supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Research Council of Italy (1980-1998).

·             ‘TRANSFAIR: trans fatty acids and risk factors for cardiovascular disease, gathered data on the fatty acid composition of foods (1995-1998).

Once analysis has been done, the foods in question are coded to allow classification, categorisation and grouping. The data is then entered into the database.

In addition to the official food composition tables, INRAN has a food labels database. This includes information about the producer, the importer/distributor, characteristics of packaging, nutrients, ingredients additives and other information such as usage, cooking methods, recipes etc. Some of this information is held as a paper archive but most is available on-line.

Finland

Fineli is the national FCDB in Finland and is maintained by the National Public Health Institute. Details can be found in Finnish, Swedish and English on-line at www.fineli.fi

In 2001 it was agreed to create a database of dietary supplements within Fineli. The National Medicines Agency had an electronic database of all supplements regarded as medicines and agreed to share this data. The data were supplied as Excel files, however, there was no standard format between the two databases, making electronic data transfer impossible. The data had to be inputted manually by the database compilers which was very time consuming.

The SINFOS data pool (www.sinfos.fi ) was established in 2004. It is part of an international SINFOS database (www.sinfos.com) used in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland and Italy, which aims to be active in 30 European countries by 2008. Manufacturer and trade organisations accepted a common model for the database in 2003. All Finnish retailers supply information to SINFOS on ingredients, nutrients and other dietary and allergenic characteristics.

Conclusions

Industrially manufactured foods make up a significant proportion of foods consumed in the EU and it is therefore important to have the latest data on their composition in FCDBs.

As outlined above, some countries in Europe are already addressing this need within their national FCDBs. There are however, a number of hurdles that these projects have encountered, and these need to be addressed in order to achieve successful data transfer on a Europe-wide basis.

It may be difficult to convince manufacturers that it is worth investing time and effort into data exchange so convenient and fast data exchange methods have to be developed and optimised. Experiences of Nubel in Belgium, who found that industry was willing to provide data, as useful feedback and communication links were received in return, is an important example to consider. In this case, industry was also given free access to the online database.

Another major difficulty that often occurs in this area is agreeing a common format with which to transfer data. Without this, data must be inputted manually which is very time consuming and resource intensive, thereby rendering the exercise impossible if it were to be completed on a European scale.

Collaboration between industry, researchers, government bodies and end users of FCDBs throughout Europe is needed to facilitate up to date FCDBs, with accurate information on the composition of industrially produced foods.

More detailed information about the examples of data transfer discussed in this web feature can be found in the report ‘Pilot Cases on Data Transfer from the Food Industry to European National Food Composition Databases’ below.