Crowdsourcing and open data can increase transparency in the food industry. The presenter discusses Open Food Facts, a project launched in 2012 that uses crowdsourcing to collect and share nutritional and ingredient data on food products. Over 12,000 products have been added by 600 contributors. The data is made available under an open database license, allowing anyone to reuse it. This can help consumers make better choices and motivate food companies to improve products. The project aims to grow internationally and find more applications of the open data.

1. A more transparent food industry thanks to
crowdsourcing and open data
Stéphane Gigandet
Advanced Master "International Food Industry Management"
ESSEC – Sept. 12th
2013

2. Agenda
● The problem
● Our solution
● How we do it
● What can be done with it
● What anyone can do with it
● Business model
● Future plans

3. ? ?
“beef meat”
“vegetable oil”For consumers,
the food industry
is a black box

4. Can we open the data on food products ourselves?
and ?
OpenStreetMap
The Free Wiki World Map

5. An Open and Collaborative Database
● Crowdsourcing:
● Launched in May 2012
● 600 contributors
● 12000 products
● Open Database Licence

6. Crowdsourcing
● Data of public interest for many different reasons
● Lots of potential contributors
● Local community engagement is a challenge

7. Decrypting labels
Carmin = E120 = Acide Carminique
Photo par Frank Vincentz, licence CC-BY-SA 3.0

8. Better labels
● In the UK:
● Traffic light labelling rejected by EU in 2010
● Today on Open Food Facts:

9. Comparing products
More transparency:
● Better choices
● Better products?

10. Open Data
● Some data is too important to
be kept locked
– Beware of one-way crowdsourcing
● Open Data
– Anyone can reuse the data for any purpose
● Open Database Licence :
– Attribution + Share-Alike

11. http://cestfabriquepresdechezvous.info/
Open Food Facts data
+ OpenStreetMap map

12. http://combiendesucres.fr

13. Benefits of Open Data
● Motivated contributors
● Greater impact on society through re-uses
– Potential uses > Foreseen uses
● Commercial use is allowed
– e.g. talking bottle project
Open Me!

14. Business model
● Non-profit project
● All contributors are volunteers
● R&D, Hosting etc.
– Offered by recettes.de/cuisine
– 1 tenth of a server
– Half of my time

15. Future plans
● Focus on international development
– Community building
– Database growth
– Applications and re-uses
● Many more ideas
– Roadmap:
http://www.mindmeister.com/fr/248768223/open-food-facts-roadmap-2013

16. Join us!
http://openfoodfacts.org
@OpenFoodFacts
contact@openfoodfacts.org