A small international planning conference on the topic of “An International Network of Food Data Systems” was held on January 30 to February 5, 1983, at the Rockefeller Conference and Study Center, in Bellagio, Italy. It was sponsored through the Food, Nutrition and Poverty Subprogramme of the United Nations University and supported by various US government agencies, private foundations, and the food industry. Participants included representatives from FAO, WHO, IUNS, and IUFoST. The purpose was to explore the needs for, and current limitations of, food composition data bases, especially in the international context, and to propose what was needed. The conference focused on the design and scope of an organization to be called INFOODS (International Network of Food Data Systems) which would promote international participation and cooperation in the acquisition and interchange of quality data on the nutrient composition of foods, beverages, and their ingredients in forms appropriate to meet the needs of government agencies; nutrition scientists; health and agriculture professionals; policy makers and planners; food producers, processors, and retailers; consumers. The conference identified the more important aspects of INFOODS to include: 1) a network of regional data centers; 2) an organizational/administrative framework for various expert task forces; 3) the generator and repository of special international data bases; 4) the stimulator of national data base programs; 5) a general and specific resource for persons and organizations interested in food composition data on a worldwide basis. Moreover, the conference agreed that INFOODS should take the responsibility of initiating, directing and coordinating efforts in the following areas: 1) development of international criteria for judging the quality of data on food composition; 2) codification of existing sources of useful data on food composition; 3) promotion of the generation and dissemination of new data on the composition of foods, beverages and their ingredients; and 4) facilitation of the access, retrieval, interchange of food composition data on a worldwide basis.