Project:Food Rescue/Features

This pages lists and describes accepted and proposed features of the Storage Life Insights project. Features that deserve more detailed discussion or planning are additionally linked to their own sub-page.

Accepted Features

In order of acceptance.

[TODO]

Proposed Features

Roughly in order of importance.

1. Per-category articles about edibility. Open Food Facts has detailed categories of products already, and it seems that they are applied like tags: each product can be in any number of categories. By attaching the expiry information to these categories, it will be simple to provide all food items with relevant expiry-related information. This information should come in multiple levels of detail, from a one-glance label that indicates if a food item's storage life is "problematic" or not, to summaries, to all the details incl. references to journal articles etc.. These articles should deal with assessing edibility of expired food items, but not be limited to that. They should also treat edibility issues in non-expired food items. For example, the problem about mould inside hazelnut kernels, and the dangers posed by that.
2. Collecting expiration dates and inferring expiration periods. This has been discussed before. See: "[…] a user inputting production and consumption dates for the same product at the same time would enable us to make averages over time […] that could help see producers which are too conservative […] assuming that all products rot at the same pace (all products that are similar)" (@teolemon here).
3. Comparison of expiration period between products. The "Shelf Life" ("Haltbarkeit") tab of the OFF app would contain an article explaining edibility, proper storage etc. and below that an auto-generated section summarizing results inferred from best-before and use-by dates of products in this category. That would include a comparison of the scanned product with other products in the category, showing if there are "better" ones (lasting longer, also without preservatives). This is basically small advertising for products that are not labeled to be thrown away, hopefully nudging manufacturers to provide more real best-before dates. The OFF web interface already has a nice architecture for product comparison with product in the same category. Comparison of the expiration period can be added there easily. See for example here at "Comparison to average values of products in the same category:".
4. Real-time counter of saved food items. Basically a feedback form at the bottom of the knowledge article about a food item's storage life, saying: "Did this help you to decide if your food item is still good to eat?", with the following options to answer: "Yes, and I saved it." / "Yes, but I had to throw it away." / "No, I'm still not sure."
5. Making it fast and comfortable to select food items without a barcode. Options include image recognition or (probably faster and more accurate) to enter the food item as text, such as "banana".
6. Asking questions about food edibility to experts.
7. List of unanswered questions / unknown facts. To make it clear what research and authoring work contributors are welcome to do.
8. Data about degree hours of cold storage. Basically, how does storage time combined with temperature affect the storage duration of food items that need cold storage.