4,000 products already referenced on NumAlim (end 2021), 250,000 references expected and 25 million data aggregated by 2023: the ambitions of the NumAlim platform, officially launched in December 2021, are strong. Why our food industry experts believe this platform is essential food industry and what are the key levers for its development?
Data currently insufficient, incomplete or even erroneous
30% to 50% of food products are said to contain at least one error in their product sheet (according to NumAlim). Launched this December 7, 2021 with the support of Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie and Industry Minister Agnès Panier-Runacher, NumAlim aims to compile all available food product data directly from manufacturers.
Food data is of strategic interest in strengthening the competitiveness of companies in the sector, and in meeting consumers' need for transparency, a need that has been reinforced over the last few years with the appearance of the Nutriscore. However, companies face 5 challenges when it comes to food data:
- its access
- its collection
- its reliability
- its analysis
- sharing.
NumAlim's aim is to support agri-food companies in meeting these challenges. To deliver on this promise, the BPI France-supported platform aims to work collectively with manufacturers in the agricultural and agri-food sectors, to help them respond more rapidly to the challenges facing the agri-food industry: confidence, value, efficiency and competitiveness.
In the absence of cooperation between industry players to date, platforms such as Yuka rely on an open-access database fed by consumers themselves. Admittedly, this collaborative approach makes it possible to meet the challenge of wider sourcing and updating, but it is necessarily a source of many errors.
Only 20% of references are listed, and of these, barely 70% are error-free.
NumAlim aims to mobilize food companies directly
While the success of Yuka demonstrates consumers' growing interest in transparent, reliable product information, NumAlim provides an essential building block for centralizing and sharing data for all players in the industry. The other challenge is to develop comprehensive and objective product evaluation reference systems, which, given the many initiatives currently underway, will be no mean feat!
To avoid incorrect information being supplied directly by consumers, NumAlim intends to go straight to the source, by mobilizing all agri-food companies.
The principle for the latter is simple: complete and register their information on the UniversAlim platform, one of the solutions offered by NumAlim.
In all, over 100 types of data will be collected, including mandatory information on product origin, allergens and quantities, as well as labels, additives and data on societal issues such as animal welfare.
A technical solution to ensure the reliability of the data thus completed by the players in the agri-food chain is essential. UniversAlim's technical partner, ConsoTrust, can automatically detect and reject any errors in the data sent to the platform by companies. NumAlim's ambition is to offer nutritional information that is 95% reliable, and even 100% reliable in the case of allergens.
The need to structure their data
Num-Alim intends to use structured data to create a reliable database. The data arriving from companies large and small is not standardized and is often presented in Excel files, for want of a better word.
To work, the project will need to be massively adopted by players in the agri-food sector, and even if they can all understand the interest of this Open Data approach and the need for greater transparency for the consumer, are they ready today to play the game?
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