January 2014 - Open Food Facts is getting global - English

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<b>Creating a database of food products from all around the world was  the  goal of Open Food Facts right from the start, and thanks to the  work of  many contributors and to a new architecture to support   internationalization, this global database is becoming a reality! Open   Food Facts now exists in 12 languages and contains data for 15778   products sold in 83 countries. But it's just the beginning!</b><br />
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<img width="640" height="367" title="Open Food Facts is getting global!" alt="Open Food Facts is getting global!" src="http://en.blog.openfoodfacts.org/images/off_world.png" /><br />
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When <a href="https://openfoodfacts.org">Open Food Facts</a> was being  designed 2 years ago, organizing products  by language did not seem to  be a bad idea. So we created sub-sites in  English for products in  English, in French for products in French, and  then we had sub-sites in  11 languages thanks to the help of many  contributors who translated  the site.<br />
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But that model soon showed its limits:<br />
<ul>
    <li>Each product was listed on only one sub-site, but many products are labeled in multiple languages</li>
    <li>Many countries share the same language and their products were  mixed together. Having a single site in Spanish for products sold in  Spain and products sold in Latin America made little sense.</li>
    <li>Some countries use multiple languages, and products from  Belgium,  Switzerland, Algeria etc. were divided on multiple sites.  South Africa  has 11 official languages, and some countries have even  more languages  in use!</li>
</ul>
Dividing the products in separate sub-sites for each language also made   comparing products between countries quite difficult. We believe there   is a lot to discover by analysing and comparing data for food products.<br />
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<h3><b>New focus on countries and territories instead of languages</b></h3>
In order to overcome those limits, we designed and deployed a new   architecture to support internationalization. It is centered around   countries and territories instead of languages. We still have sub-sites   (one per country instead of one per language), but food products are  not  divided between them. Instead the sub-sites provide different  "views" :  you can choose to see the products sold in a specific  country, or the  products from the entire world. You can also choose to  compare products  with other products of the same category from the  entire world, or with  only products available in the same country.<br />
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For each product we now track in which countries it is sold. The countries can be entered and edited like any other field, and by default   we assign the country from which the product was first entered (using   the GeoIP IP address to country database). In the future we can use   other sources of data to have more complete lists of countries where a   product is sold (e.g. using data provided by distributors and   supermarkets, or using the geolocation of people who scan the barcode   with a mobile application that uses Open Food Facts).<br />
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<h3><b>Open Food Facts still speaks 11 languages</b></h3>
12 in fact, we just added Hebrew thanks to Yaron who translated the   site! For each country you can choose to display the interface in one of   the official languages of the country, or in English. And in the  future  you will probably be able to see products from any country in  any  language.<br />
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For some of the 12 languages, the translation is still partial. You can  <a href="http://%20http://en.wiki.openfoodfacts.org/Translations">help to complete the translation on our wiki</a>.<br />
And if you speak another language, we would be very interesting in having you help to add it!<br />
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<h3><b>Global taxonomies for categories, labels and ingredients</b></h3>
We already had hierarchies for categories (e.g. we know that if a   product is in the Yogurts category, it should also be in the Dairy   products category), but now those hierarchies are global.   Spanish-speaking users can enter category names in Spanish,   French-speaking users in French, but we can now map them to the names in   English, which makes it very easy to compare a category of products   from one country to another. Or to see products from all over the world   for one category.<br />
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We also have taxonomies for labels (e.g. organic, fair trade etc.) and   we will build others for the other fields (packaging, origins etc.).<br />
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<img width="400" height="368" title="It's all Greek to me!" src="http://en.blog.openfoodfacts.org/images/chinese.jpg" alt="It's all Greek to me!" style="float:right;margin-left:20px;margin-bottom:20px" />In  fact we also have a project to build a global taxonomy of all   ingredients. It would be a fantastic tool to build very useful   applications. For instance next time you travel to a country for which   you don't know the language (and maybe not even the alphabet, Chinese is   all Greek to me!), you could just scan the barcode, and it would be   very easy to display the ingredients in your language. With a global   taxonomy of food products, we could also analyze the list of ingredients   to tell you whether it contains gluten, lactose or another substance   you may be allergic to.<br />
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Would you like to help to develop those taxonomies? Visit the <a href="http://en.wiki.openfoodfacts.org/Global_taxonomies">Global Taxonomies</a> page on our wiki! <br />
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<h3><b>It is just getting started</b></h3>
15 778 products is still a drop in the ocean of food products that are created all over the world.<br />
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<a href="http://fr-en.openfoodfacts.org/">12000 of those are from France</a>  where Open Food Facts started. So for  France we now have a reasonnably  representative set of products that  allow some very interesting  applications.<br />
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For instance it's easy to  create graphs that show nutrition facts for a category of products (e.g.  <a href="http://fr-en.openfoodfacts.org/cgi/search.pl?action=process&tagtype_0=categories&tag_contains_0=contains&tag_0=sodas&sort_by=product_name&page_size=20&axis_x=sugars&axis_y=additives_n&graph_title=Sugars%20and%20additives%20in%20sodas%20in%20France&series_with_sweeteners=on&generate_graph_scatter_plot=1">sugars and additives in sodas</a>). In a click you can see <a href="http://world.openfoodfacts.org/additives">what food  additives are the most used</a>, and in another click <a href="http://world.openfoodfacts.org/label/organic/additives">what additives are the  most used in organic products</a>. We have built <a href="http://cestfabriquepresdechezvous.info/">a map that shows where  products are made</a>, and we even created <a href="http://combiendesucres.fr/">a game to  understand how much sugars there is in food products</a>.<br />
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To replicate those applications and many more in your country, we need your help:<br />
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    <li>You can install our iPhone, Android or Windows Phone app and start adding products from your fridge and cupboards.<br />
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    <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/open-food-facts/id588797948"><img width="135" height="40" title="Available on the App Store" src="http://world.openfoodfacts.org/images/misc/Available_on_the_App_Store_Badge_EN_135x40.png" alt="Available on the App Store" />    </a><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.openfoodfacts.scanner"><img width="135" height="47" title="Available on Google Play" src="http://world.openfoodfacts.org/images/misc/android-app-on-google-play-en_app_rgb_wo_135x47.png" alt="Available on Google Play" />    </a><a href="http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/openfoodfacts/5d7cf939-cfd9-4ac0-86d7-91b946f4df34"><img width="154" height="40" title="Windows Phone Store" src="http://world.openfoodfacts.org/images/misc/154x40_WP_Store_blk.png" alt="Windows Phone Store" /></a> </li>
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    <li>You can talk about Open Food Facts on your site or blog, share it on  Facebook, Google Plus, <a href="http://twitter.com/openfoodfacts">Twitter</a> and local social networks and forums</li>
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    <li>You can <a href="http://en.wiki.openfoodfacts.org/Translations">help us with the translation</a> of the site, the mobile app and the taxonomies</li>
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    <li>You can start a community of contributors in your country</li>
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    <li>You can <a href="http://en.wiki.openfoodfacts.org/">join one of the projects that are listed on our wiki</a></li>
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Thank you!<br />
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