Open Food Facts is a community project, a crowd-sourced open database of food products around the world !
As such, we sometimes organise collective operations, inviting members of the community and users of our free platforms to participate on a specific topic.
Here are a couple of examples of collective operations (non-exhaustive list):
Collection of data on a specific product or category
Tackling Food Packaging operation to assist the research of the french environmental agency (ADEME): contributors were invited to submit food packaging data, one that Open Food Facts has not been collecting up to that point. In a few months, packaging information of over 10,000 products was crowdsourced.
Soda operation (from the early days of the project in 2012 !)
Operation Phonebox (collecting smartphone boxes for Open Products Facts)
💡And let’s not forget that one can also collect data on beauty products, pet food products or any sort of products with a barcode, using the same Open Food Facts app ! The possibilities are endless 🚀
A local event to promote food transparency, open data and Open Food Facts
It could be a group of project lovers who get together to hold a stand at an existing local event, fair, conference (ex. Fosdem event or a food producer fair to encourage them to share data with Open Food Facts or a university event)
You may know a thing or two about fundraising and would like to support our non-profit that way. With the help of the permanent team, organise a fundraiser.
FOSDEM 2025
At CIBUS Food fair in Italy
Open Food Facts Days 2024 workshop
A Hackathon using Open Food Facts data
How to go about it ?
Organising a successful Open Food Facts hackathon involves bringing together a passionate community, eager to impact the food system. We often collaborate with external groups, like previous partnerships with French government agencies (see this article in FR), or Perl developers, to maximise reach and impact.
For the basics: secure a suitable venue with ample space, wifi, lighting, and, of course, essential snacks and refreshments to keep participants energised ☕️ 🥧.
🎯 To attract a diverse and engaged crowd, effective promotion is key. Clearly communicate the hackathon’s goals, focusing on how participants can contribute to create their own thing, or improving Open Food Facts data and applications.
💡A well-structured brainstorming session at the start is crucial, encouraging diverse perspectives. Remember, a successful hackathon thrives on interdisciplinary collaboration; ensure you have a mix of programmers, designers, data scientists, food experts and community advocates. Diverse backgrounds usually lead to really cool projects to showcase at the end of the hackathon.
A think group to address a specific challenge within the project
Example with the Next Mobile app consultation, where together with the community we brainstormed and worked on a roadmap to improve the Open Food Facts mobile app.
Collective intelligence taking shape
Translating Open Food Facts together into your language
