Proposal:Food declaration

Food declaration
Proposal status:	Draft (under way)
Proposed by:	Skorbut
Draft started:	2021-11-12

Proposal

A proposal to tag origin and production methods for food (primarily meat) served in restaurants and similar facilities selling food. Some surrounding concepts are covered as well.

Usage of the food=* prefix allows easy extension for future food-related tagging.

Rationale

In Switzerland there is a legal requirement for restaurants, hospitals, etc. to declare the country of production for most types of meat in written form (either on the menu or on a poster visible to customers). Furthermore, certain kinds of production methods need to be declared, e.g. the stimulation of growth using hormones or antibiotics. There are further food properties for which a declaration is only required in some cases, e.g. the type of husbandry for chicken eggs: Declaration is required if the chickens had to live in cages, but not if they had access to the ground and the ability to roam around.

This proposal will allow to tag such properties of restaurants and other facilities vending/distributing food. The tagging scheme shall be able to handle the situation globally (not limited to Switzerland).

The tagging scheme allows to specify the following (derived and generalized from Swiss laws, sources further below):

1. Differing properties per food/animal species.
2. For all food: The country of origin/production. Larger regions such as "European Union" and "South America" are also possible to tag. [1]
3. For (wild) animals and seafood (incl. fish, etc.): Whether it was captured (e.g. from the forest/sea) or bred (held in a cage or similar) [2]
4. For captured seafood: The FAO fishing area (including subareas, divisions, subdivions), e.g. Area 34 = Eastern Central Atlantic. See http://www.fao.org/fishery/area/search/en [3]
5. For meat: Whether the animal received growth stimulants (can either be hormonal, non-hormonal (e.g. antibiotics), or both) [4]
6. For all food: Whether it is/contains genetically modified organisms (GMO). [5]
7. For all food: Whether it was treated with ionizing radiation (irradiation). [6]
8. For animals and animal products: Whether the animal was bred/kept in a keeping that is not legal where the food is sold. [7]
9. For all food: The (eco)label (if any): E.g. for fish MSC ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Stewardship_Council ), ASC ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture_Stewardship_Council ) or for (chicken) eggs: One of the many from e.g. https://essenmitherz.ch/labels-eier/, e.g. generic "Bio" (=organic), "Demeter", "Agri Natura", etc.
10. For all food: Allergens contained in the food.
11. URLs for food declarations and menus
12. For all food (if information is given): Information about origin and supplier
13. For all food: Additional declarations (promises) about the food quality.
14. For all food: Translations of custom food names.

[1] https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2017/158/de#art_5, https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2017/158/de#art_15 (especially Abs. 4, Abs. 7)

[2] https://gastropedia.ch/deklaration-gastronomie/139/ (section "Produktion"), https://www.wirtepatent.ch/de/wissen/lebensmitteldeklaration-n-was-schreibt-das-lebensmittelgesetz-vor-122.html

[3] https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2017/158/de#art_15 (Abs. 5), https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2017/158/de#annex_4

[4] https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2003/738/de#art_2 (Abs. 4 Bst. a), https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2003/738/de#art_3 (Art. 3 Abs. 1)

[5] https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2020/456/de#art_8

[6] https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2017/158/de#art_3 (Abs. 1 Bst. q), https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2017/158/de#annex_2 (Teil A, Abs. 3)

[7] https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2003/738/de#art_2 (Abs. 4 Bst. b), https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2003/738/de#art_3 (Art. 3 Abs. 2), https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2003/738/de#art_4

Further sources:

[8] GVG = Leitlinie gute Verfahrenspraxis im Gastgewerbe: https://www.gastrosuisse.ch/fileadmin/oeffentliche-dateien/merkblaetter-gastgewerbe-gastrosuisse/downloads/merkblatt-hygiene-und-lebensmittelsicherheit-gute-verfahrenspraxis-im-gastgewerbe-gvg-hygiene-leitlinie.pdf (officially approved best-practice guide for hotels/restaurants) (mostly section 2.6.2)

Tagging

Note: An overview of all proposed tags can be found at the bottom of this section.

The food=* prefix

Most of the proposed tags use the food=* prefix, in order to bundle tags when they are sorted alphabetically. This is similar to the usage of contact=*.

In order to make a statement about beef served in a specific facility, you would use a tag food:beef:*=*.

Country of origin/production

Probably the most important tag of this proposal specifies where a type of food originates from. We will use food:*:origin=* for this.

The value will be an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, that is already used in OSM context, see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Country_code .

An example would be: food:beef:origin=BR

Special case: Regions larger than a country

Special cases are declarations where the origin is not given as a country, but as a larger region.

Example: Beef from the European Union: food:beef:origin=EU (Strictly speaking EU is not formally included in ISO 3166-1, but for practical reasons, the ISO 3166/MA has "reserved the two-letter combination EU for the purpose of identifying the European Union within the framework of ISO 3166-1". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1#Criteria_for_inclusion for details.)

Example: Honey from South America: food:honey:origin=South America

If there is a declarations like "Pork: Switzerland/Germany", we will tag it as food:pork:country=CH; DE. This tagging would explicitly not specify whether the two types of pork are used in different meals or whether one meal might use the two types in turn (or even mix them).

Special case: Custom food names

If there are multiple foods made from a type of meat (coming from different countries), a generic food:chicken:*=* cannot capture the full information. In these cases, we can use custom names to assign each food its origin country.

Example:

food:Chicken leg:origin=BR
food:Chicken nugget:origin=US

There can be arbitrary food/meal names such as food:Mike's Mega Burger:*=*. This will be useful when tagging allergens.

Special case: One type of meat with differing attributes

If there is one type of meat (say pork) from differing countries and it is necessary to differentiate between them due to differing attributes, we may add a suffix _1, _2, etc.

Example:

food:pork:origin=DE
food:pork:growth_stimulants=no
food:pork_1:origin=BR
food:pork_1:growth_stimulants=hormonal

Special case: Multiple types of meat from differing countries used in the same meal

There may be cases where a type of meat (e.g. pork) from two origins is used in the same meal (either in turn or even mixed into the same meal). We can tag it like this:

food:pork:country=CH & DE

This type of tagging should only be used if the mapper has an indication that multiple types of meat are indeed used in the same meal.

Seafood: FAO fishing area

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is an agency of the United Nations. It has internationally established 27 (major) fishing areas for statistical purposes. These are then further subdivided into subareas, divisions and subdivisions, see http://www.fao.org/fishery/area/search/en . These areas have a code and a name. Example: Area 34 = Eastern Central Atlantic. Swiss (and potentially other) law requires to declare the origin of captured fish.

Example: Salmon from the Baltic Sea:

food:salmon:fao_code=27.3.d
food:salmon:fao_name=Baltic Sea
food:salmon:fao_name:de=Ostsee

food:*:fao_name=* follows the usual rules described in Names and Multilingual_names:

• It contains the common, default name in the local language.
• Names in other than the local language can be specified using food:*:fao_name:language_code=*

Preference should be given to tag food:salmon:fao_code=*, since it minimizes the chance of getting misunderstood and probably hardly ever changes. On the other hand, tagging food:salmon:fao_name=* on the go may be easier and is certainly better than having nothing tagged at all.

Food being/containing genetically modified organisms (GMO)

Example: GMO Beef: food:beef:gmo=yes

To explicitly tag food as not being/containing GMO, we use food:*:gmo=no.

Irradiated food

Food irradiation is the process of applying ionizing radiation to food in order to reduce or eliminate microorganisms and insects, thereby improving safety and extending shelf life of foods. Typical sources of ionizing radiation for this purpose are Gamma rays (emitted from Cobalt 60 or Cesium 137), X-rays and electron beams.

Example: Beef that has been irradiated: food:beef:irradiated=yes

To explicitly tag food as not having been irradiated, we use food:*:irradiated=no.

Growth stimulants

Growth stimulants are substances given to animals in order to stimulate their growth. They can either be hormonal or non-hormonal (e.g. antibiotics). Usage of antibiotics as growth stimulants is suspected to promote antibiotic resistance of bacteria.

Example: Beef from a cow having received both hormonal and non-hormonal growth stimulants: food:beef:growth_stimulants=hormonal; non-hormonal

If we know that no growth stimulants were used, we use food:*:growth_stimulants=no.

For unspecified kinds of growth stimulants (could be hormonal, non-hormonal or both), we use food:*:growth_stimulants=yes. This should only be used if more specific information is not available.

Overview of proposed tags

Key	Value	Description	Comment / special cases
food:*:*=*		Prefix to gather most tags of this proposal, also allows for future food-related tagging
food:*_1:*=*		A numbered suffix to differentiate between different types of ingredients/meat of the same kind. (necessary when they have differing attributes)
food:*:origin=*	Two-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code, e.g. DE	Country of origin/production	May contain larger regions than a country, e.g. EU, South America
food:*:origin=*	CH & DE	Syntax to indicate that one ingredient/type of meat with differing origins is used in the same meal (either in turns or even mixed into the same meal).
food:*:fao_code=*	Code for the FAO fishing area, e.g. 27.3.d	FAO fishing area
food:*:gmo=*	yes, no	Whether the food contains/is GMO
food:*:irradiated=*	yes, no	Whether the food has been irradiated
food:*:growth_stimulants=*	hormonal, non-hormonal, yes, no	The type of growth stimulants an animal received	Value yes is only to be used if more specific information is not available.

External discussions

Post on tagging mailing list: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2021-November/062838.html

Comments

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