Federation of Asian Chemical Societies (FACS)

  Last updated on 17 May, 2001      

Asia Pacific Network for Food Analysis (APFAN)

Asia Pacific Conferences on Food Analysis

The first and second Food Analysis Conferences were held in Penang in 1990 and Kuala Lumpur in 1992 in conjunction with meetings of the Instituit Kimia Malaysia. The Third APFAN Conference (3AC) was held in Manila in 1995 in conjunction with the Sixth Asian Chemical Congress. 3AC was very successful with 60 papers/posters.

The Fourth APFAN Conference (4AC) was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, 16-19 November 1998. There were 140 participants from 22 countries and over 80 papers/posters were presented. There were a large number of invited speakers from the Asia Pacific region and FAO, Rome, as well as many submitted papers and posters.

Symposia and workshops were held on the following subjects:

• Food composition data and nutritional status
• Food analysis: quality assurance and management and nutritional labelling
• Food analysis: Chemical and microbiological laboratory development and training in developing countries
• Simple/rapid methods for analysis of pesticides, aflatoxins and antinutrients in foods
• Workshop on nutritional labelling in the Asia-Pacific Workshop. Are the benefits of quality assurance cost-effective?

The Conference was preceded by a hands-on microbiological workshop at KMITT, Thonburi and after 4AC there was a Laboratory Workshop on Pesticide Immunoassay held at Chiang Mai University.

The conference program/abstract book is available free of charge from Dr J Howard Bradbury. 4AC was a very good conference and the facilities at the venue, the Amity Green Hill Hotel, Chiang Mai, were excellent.

5AC is planned for 2001 in Indonesia.