Introduction

ASEANFOODS is the Association of Southeast Asian Networks of Food Data systems. It was established in 1986 by the ASEAN Subcommittee on Protein: Food habit Research and Development, with 6 member countries including Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. In 1996, Vietnam and in 2001 Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar were submitted as a new country members. The Institute of nutrition, Mahidol University (INMU) was designated as the Regional Centre and as the Regional INFOODS database Centre by INFOODS in 1991.

The goal and objectives of the ASEANFOODS, which are in line with those of INFOODS, are to strengthening the development of national and regional food composition data with high quality, adequate quantity and accessibility to the users in ASEAN and other regions.

With the support and collaboration from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO), the United Nations University (UNU) under the INFOODS programme, OCEANIAFOODS, APFAN and other international and national organization i.e., AusAID, JICA, ILSI, INMU and NSTDB –Thailand, various activities have been carried out since 1986. The main activities are divided into 4 areas as follows.

  1. Organization of the Regional workshop (last one, 9-11 October 2002)

  2. Strengthening the analytical performance of food analysis laboratories:

    3. 2.1 Development of food reference materials
    2.2 Organization of laboratory performance study
    2.3 Preparation of ASEAN Manual for nutrient analysis (on process)

  3. Development of Regional food composition database: ASEAN food composition tables (2000)

  4. Organization of training course
    The First International FoodComp-Asia Course (6-24 May 2002)