Development of food composition database management systems: the New Zealand experience

New Zealand has a dynamic, continually-evolving, nutritionally-appropriate and technologically-relevant food composition data system due to two main factors: the core team has always been multidisciplinary and INFOODS recommendations have been followed and implemented. From its inception, the food data team included analytical chemists and biochemists for data generation, nutrition scientists for data compilation and dissemination, and programmers and systems analysts to keep the database current and to exploit the information technology resources as they were developing. INFOODS can be credited with developing systems and strategies critically important in New Zealand, and addressing many of the major problems in data compilation. Some features and uses of New Zealandʹs data system are described, including implementation of tagnames, raw data capture, food images, project management from sampling plan to user products and experiences with interchanging data files.