Open Food Facts
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Open Food Facts is a free, online and
crowdsourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...
database of food products from around the world licensed under the
Open Database License The Open Database License (ODbL) is a copyleft license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use a database while maintaining this same freedom for others. ODbL is published by Open Data Commons, which is part of Open K ...
(ODBL) while its artwork—uploaded by contributors—is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution–Share Alike license. The project was launched on 19 May 2012 by French programmer Stéphane Gigandet during the ''Food Revolution Day'' organized by
Jamie Oliver James Trevor Oliver MBE OSI (born 27 May 1975) is an English chef, restaurateur and cookbook author. He is known for his casual approach to cuisine, which has led him to front numerous television shows and open many restaurants. Oliver reache ...
and has won the ''2013 Dataconnexions Award'' from Etalab and the 2015 OKFN Award from
Open Knowledge Open knowledge (or free knowledge) is knowledge that is free to use, reuse, and redistribute without legal, social, or technological restriction. Open knowledge organizations and activists have proposed principles and methodologies related to th ...
. In May 2016, its database contained more than 80,000 products from 141 countries. In June 2017, thanks to the growing ecosystem of apps and open data imports from various countries, this number rose to 880,000. In October 2019 OFF passed the 1,000,000 products milestone.


Overview

The project gathers information and data on food products from around the world. For each item, the database stores its generic name, quantity, type of packaging, brand, category, manufacturing or processing locations, countries and stores where the product is sold, list of ingredients, any traces (for
allergies Allergies, also known as allergic diseases, refer a number of conditions caused by the hypersensitivity of the immune system to typically harmless substances in the environment. These diseases include hay fever, food allergies, atopic derma ...
,
dietary laws Some people do not eat various specific foods and beverages in conformity with various religious, cultural, legal or other societal prohibitions. Many of these prohibitions constitute taboos. Many food taboos and other prohibitions forbid the mea ...
or any specific diet),
food additive Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavor or enhance taste, appearance, or other sensory qualities. Some additives have been used for centuries as part of an effort to preserve food, for example vinegar (pickling), salt (salt ...
s and nutritional information. The nutritional value is calculated using the
Nutri-Score The Nutri-Score, also known as the 5-Colour Nutrition label or 5-CNL, is a five-colour nutrition label and nutritional rating system, and an attempt to simplify the nutritional rating system demonstrating the overall nutritional value of food pro ...
. Each contributor can add or edit food items based on the information explicitly shown on the package. As a result, the GTIN (
Global Trade Item Number The Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) is an identifier for trade items, developed by the international organization GS1. Such identifiers are used to look up product information in a database (often by entering the number through a barcode scanne ...
) embedded in the
barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...
on the packaging of the product (when available) is generally used as the
identifier An identifier is a name that identifies (that is, labels the identity of) either a unique object or a unique ''class'' of objects, where the "object" or class may be an idea, physical countable object (or class thereof), or physical noncountable ...
. Mobile phone applications allow for capturing photos and information that are reprocessed manually by volunteers. Due to similar mechanisms for modification, extension, or deletion of content and structure, the project is sometimes compared to
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
in the media.


Reuses

The data is reused by various projects on issues related to palm oil, sugar, and location of the producers.


The Open Food Facts app

Open Food Facts made an app for
IOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
and Android. With this app, it's possible for the contributors to quickly add products on the site (by photographing them and complete some product information). You can use the app to scan the
barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...
of food products and directly see the
nutri-score The Nutri-Score, also known as the 5-Colour Nutrition label or 5-CNL, is a five-colour nutrition label and nutritional rating system, and an attempt to simplify the nutritional rating system demonstrating the overall nutritional value of food pro ...
and the eco-score. It's also easy to compare different food products based on their ingredients.


Open Food Fact days

The Open Food Facts days is an annual event where contributors can brainstorm. There are also a lot of workshops.


See also

*
Information activism An information activist is someone who works to make information available to the general population. According to Anthony Molaro, "An information activist is a vigorous advocate of knowledge gained through study, communication, research or instruct ...
*
Right to know Right to know is a human right enshrined in law in several countries. UNESCO defines it as the right for people to "participate in an informed way in decisions that affect them, while also holding governments and others accountable". It pursues ...
*
Farm-to-table Farm-to-table (or farm-to-fork, and in some cases farm-to-school) is a social movement which promotes serving local food at restaurants and school cafeterias, preferably through direct acquisition from the producer (which might be a winery, brewer ...


References


External links

* {{Official website
Open Food Facts team wiki
(English) * http://blog.openfoodfacts.org/en/ (English) Online databases Consumer rights organizations Food- and drink-related organizations Creative Commons-licensed websites Open content projects Free-content websites Crowdsourcing Internet properties established in 2012