Effective systems for organizing product information are essential to producers and aggregators in local and regional food systems, especially those operating at the wholesale level. This project provides a template for utilizing data guidelines that will increase the consistency of fresh produce product data across the local foods sector.
Producers, food hub networks, marketing coops, and other local and regional partners who adopt the data guidelines will simplify and streamline their internal operations and interactions with small growers while improving ease of access to their product offerings for buyers. Utilizing these materials can improve the ability of local and regional producers to participate in a broader marketplace, thus expanding both the volume of local produce and the ease of accessibility to regional products for institutional buyers. Increasing the consistency of data structures will also help make comparison and analysis of products in local markets much more feasible.
The guidelines and template were developed as part of a cooperative agreement between USDA AMS and the International Center for Food Ontology Operability Data and Semantics (IC-FOODS). Through this project a collaborative group of growers, aggregators, and buyers identified a "voluntary consensus data standard" for fresh fruits and vegetables. The final guidelines leverage existing traceability standards, naming conventions, pack sizes, and product attribute definitions in a manner appropriate for local and regional production systems. To download the template and read more about the guidelines, please visit the IC-FOODS project website.
View the Data Guidelines for Produce Markets in Regional Food Systems Report (pdf)