It is fitting that this, first, Guest Editorial to the new-format Bulletin should be devoted to stored-product entomology since 1990 celebrates 50 years of the formal establishment of stored-product insect research and control programmes in Britain. It was in 1940 that the Pest Infestation Laboratory was established at Slough under the, then, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, consolidating the work begun some 15 years earlier under Professor J. W. Munro in the Entomology Department of Imperial College; almost at the same time, the Infestation Control Division of the Ministry of Food (now MAFF) was set up as an inspectorial and advisory body. Much has been achieved and many organisational changes have taken place since then. The original organisations have come together under the umbrella of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) whilst the group which was initiated at Slough in 1951 to address problems of storage in tropical areas is now the Storage Department of the Overseas Development Natural Resources Institute (ODNRI), the scientific unit of the Overseas Development Administration, UK (ODA). Slough has become synonymous with stored product research in Britain and beyond; sadly, however, the ‘Slough connection’ is destined to end—the ODNRI department will move this year to join its sister departments in the institute's new major laboratory development at Chatham, Kent, whilst plans are in hand for the eventual relocation of the MAFF laboratory as part of the Central Science Laboratory of the Agricultural Development and Advistory Service (ADAS).