The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has a role in promoting and co-ordinating the development of harmonised risk assessment methodologies. Exposure assessment is a crucial and integral part of risk assessment and the quality of available data both on food consumption and on occurrence levels may have a major impact on the outcome of risk assessment. It is therefore important to harmonise the collection and collation of food consumption data across EU Member States and similarly to harmonise the collection of occurrence data in food, covering contaminants, zoonoses, pesticides, nutrients and others.