What Is Open World Facts?
Open Food Facts is a free food products database. They gather and share information about food products from around the world for viewers to read. The project was started by Frenchman Stéphane Gigandet, who founded the food blogs: Recettes de Cuisine and Very Good Recipes. He’s done a variety collaborative work with food related projects.
Open Food Facts: Contributors Program
The Open Food Facts project are designed for foodies, specifically those who are very passionate about it. Contributors for this product can add products to the food database. Contributors can easily be a part of the project by creating an account through the website and adding their products to the database. Open Food Facts also has an open forum where contributors can share ideas and start threads of new topics to engage dialogue with followers and other fellow contributors of the project. Along with the forum, they also interact with people via social media: Facebook (fan page and contributors group), Twitter, Google+ and Slack).
How Does It Work?
All of the products contributed through Open Food Facts are done voluntarily. The information presented on their database can be used by everyone for everything. Since this database is open to the public, users of the page are allowed to redistribute or reuse the data for articles, studies, services, websites, or monetize with this information by selling it for ads.
What is Special About Open Food Facts?
The main differentiating factor between Open Food Facts and its competitors is that their information is available to everyone utilize off of it free of charge. Stephane Gigandet believes that anyone should have access to information on food products instead of keeping it private and hidden form those who could utilize it. Other competing websites do not allow anyone to reuse their information (or require a large fee to use their information), while Open Food Facts encourages people to utilize the information found in their database.
What to Expect When Looking Through the Database
Open Food Facts consist of a variety of food products including:
- Breakfast foods
- Condiments
- Packaged Dinners
- Butters and spreads
- Candy and snack foods
- Beverages
- Sweeteners
- Coffee/Tea
- Dairy products/eggs
- Boxed/frozen dinners
- Canned food
- Nuts/Seeds
- Alcoholic Beverages
- Dessert items
- Dried fruit
- Organic/health foods
When looking up a food item in the database one will find the following:
- Packaging information
- Brands
- Quantity
- Categories
- Origin and manufacturing location
- Countries where the product is sold
- Ingredients
- Nutrition facts
Where to Find More Information
More information about Open Food Facts can be found on their website: openfoodfacts.org. For those who are interested in contributing and joining the community can create an account and start listing products and engaging with others.
Conclusion – Is This A Trusted Brand?
Open Food Facts database is filled with thousands of food products from around the world. They are keeping transparent and share all of the valuable information needed about each food item. For these reasons, this brand is recommended.
