| Congress | Year | Place, Country | Principal organiser |
| 1st CEFood | 2002 | Ljubljana, SI | Peter Raspor |
| 2nd CEFood | 2004 | Budapest, HU | Diána Bánáti |
| 3rd CEFood | 2006 | Sofia, BG | Kostadin Fikiin |
| 4th CEFood | 2008 | Cavtat, HR | Damir Karlović, Kata Galić |
| 5th CEFood | 2010 | Bratislava, SK | Peter Šimko |
| 6th CEFood | 2012 | Novi Sad, RS | Viktor Nedović |
| 7th CEFood | 2014 | Ohrid, MK | Vladimir Kakurinov |
| 8th CEFood | 2016 | Kiev, UA | Iaroslav Zasiadko |
| 9th CEFood | 2018 | Sibiu, RO | Ovidiu Tița |
| 10th CEFood | 2020 | Sarajevo, BA | Zlatan Sarić |
| 11th CEFood | 2022 | Čatež ob Savi, SI | Peter Raspor |
| 12th CEFood | 2024 | Szeged, HU | Diána Bánáti |
Throughout the centuries Central Europe has always been a very influential melting pot of ideas for transnational and regional cooperation. At the end of the last and at the beginning of this century there was a great spirit of cooperation in Middle Europe as evidenced first by The Alps-Adriatic Working Community and later by the Danube initiatives – these two initiatives having a wide variety of cross-border motives for cooperation, not just political clustering. Obviously various platforms had claimed a necessity for cooperation. However, the Central European initiative (CEI) which was established in 1989 in Budapest remains the one which offers a good frame for scientific research and educational cooperation in the area of Food.
Expansion of the European Union to Middle Europe later stimulated new visionary cooperation, not just in the North–South orientation, but also in the West–East orientation. This was the milestone for the 2002 erection of the Central European Congress on Food and Nutrition (CEFood congress) in Ljubljana.
The scientific and professional framework of the 1st CEFood congress in 2002 offered a solid basis and a guarantee for the CEFood congresses to continue into future events. Since 2002 CEFood congresses have been organized biannually in different CEI countries, the 11th after 20 years organized in Slovenia.
In 2006 the European Federation of Food Science and Technology (EFFoST) showed definite desire to enter this network, due to good and efficient organization, based on the devotion of the CEFood congresses’ principal organizers and their teams.
Most notably, respect and gratitude to all past organizers are passed from congress to congress by making each past principal organizer a member of the Honorary committee of the CEFood 2024.