Food Submission
With the 2.7.0 release, you will be able to contribute new branded products to our food database. To do so, you can toggle the option to submit new foods directly from the Custom Food Creator. This release is another step towards growing MacroFactor’s global branded product coverage.
The majority of apps have a closed food database where their users’ new food submissions are used to serve only the app itself. We have decided to share all new and validated submissions with Open Food Facts, a non-profit organization with the mission of making food information freely accessible to everyone. That way, if you choose to contribute new foods to the database, your work will benefit everyone who may want to access this information and not just MacroFactor.
FAQ
Do I have to submit my custom foods? I’d rather keep my custom foods private.
Absolutely not! Food submission is an opt-in feature, and all of your custom foods are private by default. Once you enable food submission, all new custom foods and edits you make from that point forward will be considered for the database until you toggle food submission off.
I enabled food submission, but now I would like to stop contributing. How can I turn off this feature?
You can toggle-off food submission anytime directly from the Custom Food Creator. Past foods you submitted will still remain in the database, but your new foods and edits will remain private.
Why are some custom foods ineligible for submission?
User submitted entries are new to MacroFactor. Majority of our food database is licensed from high quality food databases and research institutions. If you create a custom food by copying a licensed entry using the “To Custom” feature, it becomes ineligible for submission. Likewise, foods created in the past will not be eligible for admission. If you’d like to submit this food because you believe there is a mistake in the database, you can do so by creating a new custom food from scratch by referencing the product label.
I submitted a food, but it was not added to the database. Why is that?
Submitting a food does not guarantee that it will be accepted to the database. Foods are validated prior to submission, and you can maximize the chances of your submission being accepted by providing high quality information, including the food name, brand, barcode, serving weight or volume, calories and macros.
How quickly will an accepted food be added to the database?
An accepted food will usually appear in MacroFactor’s database within 24-48 hours, but it can take longer in some cases.
Will this feature lead to the same issue I experienced with other apps where there are 5 versions of the same banana with different and often inaccurate nutrition?
No, we are not accepting custom food entries indiscriminately, and we are not accepting entries for non-branded products. When you query for foods using MacroFactor’s search feature, entries at the top are all curated common entries with detailed macro and micronutrient reporting, often licensed from research grade institutions. Users will not be able to submit Common Food entries or recipes to the database, and we will continue to update and maintain high quality Common Food search entries.
Branded products are identified with a unique barcode, and as a result of this release, we expect an increase in branded product coverage globally without introduction of duplicates in the food search.
Are these entries manually verified by a human?
User-submitted entries will be machine validated by us, and reviewed by the Open Food Facts community, but they are not guaranteed to be manually verified by a human. However, our Common Foods will continue to only be sourced from research grade institutions and databases, and the majority of the branded foods in our food search are from human verified sources. We expect this update to increase barcode coverage without impacting the previous search experience.
Community Note: The release will gradually roll out to Android and iOS devices. It will take 1-7 days for the update to make it to everyone. After 1 day, any iOS user should be able to manually initiate the update from the App Store.
