Food Standards Australia New Zealand

Australian Food Composition Program

The food composition program at FSANZ is run by a small group of nutritionists who:

  • Maintain a data management system called the Australian Nutrient Data Bank
  • Generate and compile nutrient composition data for Australian foods to be published as food composition tables and electronic databases
  • Manage a web-based labelling tool called the Nutrition Panel Calculator
  • Generate specialised datasets for food standards development work and monitoring post implementation

Food Composition Data

FSANZ publishes two types of food composition databases.

NUTTAB

 AUSNUT

Reference database

Survey database
Foods and nutrients vary according to data availableFoods and nutrients vary according to survey

Primarily analysed data

Derivation of data varies

incomplete dataset for each food

Complete dataset for each food

These databases are available in a range of formats and are used by:

  • FSANZ for undertaking risk assessment processes, assisting with FSANZ work on monitoring fortification and feeding into datasets used in the Nutrition Panel Calculator (NPC)
  • public health professionals, academia, industry and consumers for nutrition labelling, research on diet and disease, education, and to assist with making healthy food choices
  • external contractors requested by government departments to analyse information from National Nutrition Surveys, to enable reporting of nutrient intakes from various population groups in Australia.

Nutrition Panel Calculator   (NPC)

The Nutrition Panel Calculator was launched in its current format in 2004 as a tool to help industry to generate Nutrition Information Panels for their products. The NPC is also popular with students and consumers who want information on the nutrient content of foods.

Further information

For further information on food and nutrient composition, please contact npc@foodstandards.gov.au .