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I've worked in this industry for many years. Everything you see or read is all being controlled by the manufactures of the ingredients + the manufactures of the
by mocmoc 4y ago
I've worked in this industry for many years. Everything you see or read is all being controlled by the manufactures of the ingredients + the manufactures of the product to finally being label under controlled agencies by them.
I'm not being harsh , or stating that openfoodfacts is not good or the info you get is not real / valid. they basically have what they gave them.
The industry (food and cosmetic) is in the paleolithic era , everything is being send and share on .csv or with proprietaries API (exam Nilsen), data aggregators using GS1 which is horrible, being parsed by some kind of ML algos that companies are writing , trying to uniform product data, trying to correct typos , clarify if the formulas are harmful for humans or not base on years of multiple studies and proprietary logic, that change more often than not. It Is a mess
There is a lot of good intentions, a lot of good people that they really care and want to change the market to create better products (starting from creating better ingredients) but honestly is not going to happen any time soon. Is just simply too big of an industry with years of legacy.
The only light I see is to start from 0, new small brands that may manufacture cosmetics and food and they can control what is being engineer inside , and they can store data in modern DBs and using Modern API design to expose the data and allow corrections. Is the only solution I see.
*edit typo
- antholeole 4y agoI’m confused by this comment - what’s the problem here? The processes is slow and manual? While I get that that’s an issue in its own right, how does that connect to this post? What does “they basically have what you gave them” mean? Not trying to be mean, I seriously just want to understand this comment. Thanks!
- mocmoc 4y agohttps://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/en/consum-attori/la-app-yuka-condannata-a-parigi-per-le-battaglie-contro-nitriti-e-nitrati https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/en/consum-attori/la-app... There are certain lines that the platforms can’t cross. The information of open food facts, is pretty much useless(is open and known by anyone) when it gets interesting is when we analyze the formulations and effects of those. Same applies in cosmetics If something has more or less sugar , more or less saturated fats is just a kids play. Nothing really interesting there, the brands and manufacturers , years ago were trying to prevent the exposure of the “is a bad product” message on those apps and platforms. Now they have learnt that is indeed nothing they have to be worried about. As the market of mindful consumers is literally tiny , it may look like gigantic from outside (data says the opposite) So , An ingredient manufacturer , sells it to a Group , a group creates a formulation , goes to the market as safe (as of today) and becomes to be sold in your supermarket. Years later independent studies arise and show that ingredient N was harmful (cancer, breaks barrier of the skin, generates hormonal effects) and this platforms , aim to show that in their software. But this is proprietary to their platforms and like Yuka you may get sued