Global taxonomies

From Open Food Facts wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search


Quick presentation

Quick presentation of the taxonomies


  • Translations for every language of each field value
  • Multiple synonyms for each field value in each language
  • Stopwords for each language/field type


Taxonomy term

A taxonomy term is the main object of a taxonomy. Its simple form is the term itself with its language as a prefix. Example: en:Authentic Trappist Product is a term in the labels' taxonomy.





Each field value can be translated to any language.


  • Which standard is used for the codes? It can be the ISO-639-1 standard, eventually this can be extended the 3-letter codes.

Singular or plural?

Generally, we use the plural for categories but some of them are in singular. We don't put the plural form when it has a different meaning. For example Beef and Beefs. We are talking of the meat and not the animal, so there is no "s". But "Rillettes" in french (and others languages) doesn't have a singular form.

Sometimes plural or singular depends on the language. The situation for dutch is described in Dutch translation issues.

If the category is in plural form, the translations should be in the plural form.

@stephane new proposal (not yet adopted, to be discussed)
In the categories taxonomy, always use the plural (en:beers, fr:bières).
Then add the singular (especially if it's not a simple rule like removing the final s) in a property:
For the ingredients taxonomy, do the reverse:
always use the singular for the main entry, and then add the plural:



Simple synonyms (simple singular) are done automatically when possible.



  • What are the simple synonym rules? How does translate to other languages?
  • Not that recursion does not work for languages, where the adjectives change based on gender.



In the ingredients taxonomy, stopwords are also words that can be ignored. For instance contains is not an ingredient.


The description: prefix allows to describe the term. Example:

en:Fair trade

The description is reused on Open Food Facts website. Example:

Image (logo)

The image: prefix allows to add an image/logo related to the term.

en:Bio Austria
de:Bio Austria

The description is reused on Open Food Facts website. Example:


The wikidata: prefix allows to link the term with its equivalent on Wikidata database. Example:

fr:Label Rouge
xx:Label Rouge

The description is reused on Open Food Facts website. Example:


"we use "opposite" for imports (e.g. when there is a column "Organic" with values like "No")

en:Non-fair trade, Not fair trade

fr:Non issu du commerce équitable

opposite:en: en:fair-trade"


The wikipedia: prefix allows to link the term with its equivalent on Wikipedia. Example:

<en:Fair trade
en:Fairtrade USA
xx:Fairtrade USA

The wikipedia: property is not reused on Open Food Facts website.

Unused properties

Some people have added more properties in the different taxonomies. They are not used for the moment, but they can lead to interesting usages:

  • give more information for the contributor who is editing the taxonomy
  • prepare new usages or features

Here is a list of properties already used in the taxonomies:

  • wikipedia:
  • country:
  • label_categories:
  • eu_groups:
  • auth_name:
  • auth_address:
  • auth_url:
  • exceptions:

Taxonomy architecture



# stopwords
stopwords:en: some,stopwords

synonyms:en: global,international

en: value, a synonym value, another synonym value
fr: valeur, une valeur synonyme, une autre valeur synonyme

<en: value
en: a child value, a synonym for a child value
fr: une valeur enfant, un synonyme d'une valeur enfant

<en: value
en: another child value

<en: a child value
<en: another child value
en: a grand-child value

# properties
en: value
fr: valeur
description:en: a property of value
description:fr: french version of the property

List of taxonomies

The definitions can be edited on GitHub, they are periodically synchronized on the Open Food Facts database and web site.


(on Github, account and VCS knowledge needed)

Draft Taxonomies

Building and deploying taxonomies

Changes to taxonomies on GitHub are not deployed instantly, the need to be built, deployed, and products need to be re-processed with the new taxonomy.

More info

For detailed information specific for the ingredients taxonomy see Ingredients Ontology.