Currently, only 37% of the foods on the South African Food Data System (SAFOODS) are of South African origin, with most of the data originating from recipe calculations and data borrowed from the US (27%) and the UK.

“Many of our users assume that all of our nutrient information currently available is of South African origin,” said South African Medical Research Council (MRC) research dietitian and food composition database compiler for South Africa Joelaine Chetty on Thursday.

She explained that increasing the number of South African foods in the database, not only in terms of quantity but also in terms of being analysed  locally, was a challenge for the MRC. This was because “the minute you start to reach out to industry, automatically people assume that you are checking up on ‘our’ food, and this is not the point”.

The MRC mostly sourced data from literature or publications on nutrient data, but Chetty added that the biggest source of contact was the South African food industry.

“Ideally we would like to source certificate of analyses [for example] if people are using our labs, which are accredited, based on our food labelling legislation.

“Our regulations dictate that when you make a claim, chemical analysis is mandatory.” Ideally, the MRC would want the regulations to stipulate that information generated through these chemical analyses be fed into the SAFOODS database.

“We are getting there slowly but surely.”

She highlighted that the MRC had “consulted seriously” on the draft R429 food labelling regulations, published in May 2014, adding that the current regulations were written outside the South African database. “But, there are certain implications if you borrow internationally and don’t use information from local sources.”

Further, the data that was available on the SAFOODS website was subject to various priorities, with Chetty advising that the MRC was aggressively busy with baby food updates at present, because this had not been updated for several years.

“We have had good feedback.”

The other objectives of the council with regard to sourcing accurate nutrient information of the country’s food items were collaborating with food composition generators, encouraging the food industry to become involved in the generation of food composition data, educating the users of food composition data on its correct use and encouraging laboratories to practice quality control of analytical data.

The SAFOODS website was launched to enable the nutrition fraternity access to select nutrient composition of foods and aspects regarding the determination of the composition of foods. 

Chetty advised that the 2014 version of the website contained 1 471 food items, shared among 16 food groups, with 175 nutrients maintained.