European Food Consumption Survey

EFCOSUM Group 2001, European food consumption survey method, TNO report V3766, TNO Nutrition and Food Research, Zeist, The Netherlands. 

A major weakness of a short-term (24 hour survey) is that it may depend upon the day of the week, when the survey was conducted. For example, in some European countries the diet on a Friday would consist of more fish than any other day and consequently this would impact on the packaging and the potential migrants present. Another issue is the season of the year and when the consumption surveys were conducted. Seasonal foods, particularly in Southern Europe, may have very large differences in consumption and out of season only the preserved or frozen seasonal foods may be consumed in contrast to the fresh ones, which may have been consumed in season. This will impact the packaging of the foodstuff significantly. 

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