Explore FoodEx2, the easier way

FoodEx2 is an excellent food ontology.

Still, it comes with a learning curve.

I'll help you navigate it.

Our Products

  • Catalogue Explorer >>>

    With our Catalogue Explorer, you can easily navigate through FoodEx2 and understand its terms and relationships.

    Free to use.

  • FoodEx2 MCP Service (coming soon)

    With our MCP service, you can interact with the FoodEx2 database through a language model.

    Coming soon.

What is FoodEx2?

FoodEx2 is a shared food vocabulary and classification system maintained by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), developed in collaboration with the FAO.

Unlike single-hierarchy food ontologies like FoodOn, it offers multiple hierarchies tailored to different food domains, such as food consumption, chemical contaminants, pesticide residues, and zoonoses.

In addition, FoodEx2's facets allow any food to be described even when it isn't already listed in the catalogue, by specifying its source, provenance, and other aspects.

Who I am, and why I built FoodEx2 Atlas

My name is Jorn Mineur and my background is in custom software development. From 2005 to 2021, our team built software for clients in healthcare, legal, e-commerce, and publishing across Europe, the United States, and Australia.

In 2021, I became interested in nutrition science, noticing the pervasive biases in studies and dietary guidelines. This is why I am building FoodNotes, a de-biasing platform for food and nutrition.

FoodNotes needed a food ontology to build on. I started with FoodOn, but ran into limitations. An amalgam of food vocabularies with uneven levels of detail, it tries to be complete but still falls short, and doesn't allow defining missing foods.

FoodEx2 looked like a better-designed alternative, but I couldn't find good tools to work with it. I needed a browser and an MCP server for my own work on FoodNotes, so I built them, and decided to share them with others who have the same need.

Hence FoodEx2 Atlas. The Catalogue Explorer is free to use, and an MCP version is coming soon.