Establishment and advances in the online Serbian food and recipe data base harmonized with EuroFIR™ standards

• EuroFIR identified lack of FCDB and Food Composition Data Management tools in CEE/B.
• IMR created Food Composition Data Management software, harmonized with EuroFIR.
• The 1st online Serbian FCDB was compiled and launched in 2007.
• Serbian FCDB has 1046 foods and 129 traditional composite dishes.

Within the European Food Information Resource Network of Excellence (EuroFIR NoE; FP6) and EuroFIR Nexus (FP7) project paucity in food composition databases (FCDB) in the Central Eastern Europe/Balkan (CEE/B) region was identified. As a member of EuroFIR NoE, the Centre of Research Excellence in Nutrition and Metabolism, Serbia initiated creation of the 1st online Serbian FCDB employing EuroFIR quality framework and CEN Food Data Standard requirements, supporting capacity development and designing the web-based Food Composition Data Management (FCDM) software for FCDB building. The 1st online version of Serbian FCDB was launched in 2007, and then extended with food composition data from other Balkan countries (Balkan Food Platform-Regional FCDB). All foods are indexed using LanguaL Thesaurus and coded with EFSA FoodEx2 coding system. To date, upgraded Serbian FCDB with 1046 foods and 129 traditional/common Serbian composite dishes is a prerequisite for nutritional research in Serbia, CEE/B region and wider Europe.