Data sources

DietTribe is built on a simple belief: accurate dietary information should be freely available to everyone who needs it. This page explains where our product data comes from, how we use it, and what we give back.

Open Food Facts

The majority of our packaged product data is imported from Open Food Facts (OFF) — a free, open, collaborative food products database maintained by volunteers across the world. Think of it as Wikipedia for food: anyone can contribute, and all of the data is freely available.

OFF data includes barcodes, product names, manufacturers, ingredient lists, and nutritional information. When you view a product on DietTribe and see an Open Food Facts ↗ link in the sidebar, that is the record we drew from. We show that link so you can see the source and — if you notice something wrong — fix it there too.

Open Database Licence (ODbL)

Open Food Facts is published under the Open Database Licence. ODbL is a share-alike licence: you are free to use, redistribute, and build on the data — including for commercial purposes — provided that any derived database you publish is released under the same licence. DietTribe operates under these terms.

Community submissions

Anyone can submit a new product listing or add evidence to an existing one. Community submissions are the most valuable thing DietTribe has — they bring NZ-specific dietary evidence that a global database simply cannot have at scale.

Submissions can include:

  • Photos of the front and back of packaging
  • Photos of ingredient lists and nutritional panels
  • Photos of allergy certification marks
  • Manufacturer-provided statements

All submissions are reviewed by our moderation team before they affect a listing's confidence state. Submit a listing or evidence →

Venue locations — OpenStreetMap

Venue location data — the pins you see on our map — was seeded from OpenStreetMap and subsequently refined with information from Google Places. OpenStreetMap data is © OpenStreetMap contributors and is made available under the Open Database Licence (ODbL).

Other sources

We supplement OFF and community data with other publicly available sources, including official guidance from Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and Coeliac New Zealand. As we find additional verified sources we will add them here.

Sharing back to Open Food Facts

We think open data works best when it flows in both directions. New Zealand has dietary safety information — coeliac certifications, detailed allergen declarations, NZ-specific product variants — that the global OFF database often lacks. That information should not sit only with us.

Our intention is to contribute verified NZ dietary data back to Open Food Facts. In practice this means:

1
A submission arrives — a community member photographs a product's ingredient list, allergy declaration, or certification mark.
2
We verify it — our moderation team reviews the evidence against the relevant dietary standard and approves it.
3
It goes back to OFF — the verified data (ingredient list corrections, allergen declarations, certification notes) is contributed to the Open Food Facts record for that product, attributed to DietTribe.
4
Everyone wins — the global OFF database gets accurate NZ data; any app or service built on OFF inherits the improvement automatically.

This contribution loop is consistent with our ODbL obligations and is, we think, simply the right thing to do. If you represent a product manufacturer and want to ensure your products are accurately represented on both DietTribe and Open Food Facts, please get in touch.

What this means when you submit

When you submit evidence to DietTribe, you are contributing to an open commons. Submissions may be shared with Open Food Facts under ODbL. We will not sell your submission data or use it for any purpose other than improving the accuracy of dietary information on DietTribe and the broader open food database.

Your email address is used only for submission verification and is never shared. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Accuracy and limitations

Product ingredients and manufacturing processes change. A product that was coeliac safe last year may not be today. DietTribe shows a last-updated date on each listing, but we cannot guarantee any information is current. Always read the label on the product in your hand before you eat it, and ask about cross-contamination at venues.

If you notice incorrect information, please submit a correction or edit the record directly on Open Food Facts.

Images and design

The DietTribe logo and images of Aramis — our White Swiss Shepherd mascot, including the homepage illustration and the 404 page illustration of Aramis chasing a round orange ball — were created using Microsoft Designer.

Contact

Questions about our data practices? Email us at hello@diettribe.nz.