NICE-Food: An RDF knowledge graph incorporating nutritional, contaminant, and environmental characteristics of food and branded food ingredients

NICE-Food:

To support food experts in complex interdisciplinary information retrieval we developed NICE-Food, a knowledge graph and data pipeline combining subgraphs on Nutrition, Ingredients, Contaminants and Environmental impact for the Netherlands. Through data annotation and mapping employing food related ontologies and Resource Description Framework (RDF), NICE-Food enhances the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles of food data. We used NICE-Food 1) to assess the data overlap between the different NICE domains 2) for the identification of communal food groups across the integrated data 3) to provide food recommendation based on specific food preferences 4) to infer knowledge on contemporary branded products such as meat and fish alternatives. 

NICE-Food is a knowledge graph consisting of four subgraphs covering data from:

1) N: Dutch Food Composition Database (NEVO)

2) I: Branded Food Database (LEDA)

3) C: Quality Programme for Agricultural Products (KAP)

4) E: The environmental impact of food products. 

Food data was harmonized using FoodOn and modelled using the food item ontology (Wageningen University & Research) and food safety monitoring ontology (Maastricht University).