History and background

WEFTA is nowadays an important platform in Europe
for institutes engaged in fish and food science and technology.

In the period approximately between 1925 to 1955, the Governments of several maritime countries through-out the world established public institutes that were wholely or mainly concerned with carrying out research and giving information and advice on the subject of fish technology.

The principal motivation behind these initiatives was to provide technical assistance to those part of the fish industries that handled, processed and marketed fish and fishery products.
At the end of the sixties the idea was raised to organize meetings between national fish technology institutes for the purpose of discussing matters of common interest which were drawn from their entire activities.

In 1970 the initiative was taken to bring together (young) scientists from the various fish technology institutes to discuss research activities of common interest. The West European Fish Technologists Association (WEFTA) was born.

Since then yearly meetings are organised. The meetings have an informal character. Papers presented at the meetings are regarded as vehicles for tentative ideas of for work in progress or as a pre-publication communications. The papers are therefore not to be quoted by others in any published work without reference to the author. 

At this moment each European country has one representative member Institute in the WEFTA board. The membership for WEFTA is open for other seafood oriented institutes. A procedure for becoming a member of WEFTA is established in October 2007. The procedure is described in the bylaws of WEFTA. WEFTA has no appointed, permanent secretariat.

WEFTA meetings (2-4 days) are held either at a member Institute or at convenient places closeby. Topics of current importance for the forthcoming meetings are discussed by the representative of the member Institutes in a board meeting.

WEFTA representatives 1970

WEFTA representatives 2005