FATO: The Food Allergen Traceability Ontology

Submitted by George Baryannis on 09/16/2025 - 10:06

Tracking #: 3945-5159

Authors: 
George Baryannis
Lili Jia
Emmanuel Papadakis

Responsible editor: 
Stefano Borgo

Submission type: 
Ontology Description
Abstract: 
With the increase of food allergic population worldwide, food allergen traceability has become an imperative food safety concern. Food businesses, however, have difficulty ensuring food allergen traceability because it is time-consuming and costly to obtain accurate food allergen data along the supply chain. Semantic Web technologies have great potential to improve efficiency and accuracy of food allergen traceability through automating food data exchange along the supply chain. In this paper, we present the Food Allergen Traceability Ontology (FATO), the first ontology that focuses on food allergen management and traceability processes. To overcome the overspecification problem in the development of ontologies, we propose the integration of a range of knowledge sources on improving food allergen management, in addition to domain experts, to inform the development of FATO. The ontology builds on and is compatible with existing food and product ontologies and models and captures knowledge on food allergen declarations, food allergen management processes and traceability. Application examples are provided to illustrate how FATO can be employed to address long-standing issues in food allergen management as well as drive innovation in food businesses.
Full PDF Version: 
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Revised Version:
FATO: The Food Allergen Traceability Ontology
Tags: 
Reviewed
Long-term Stable Link to Resources: 
https://w3id.org/FATO

Decision/Status: 
Minor Revision

Solicited Reviews:
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Review #1
Anonymous submitted on 17/Nov/2025
Suggestion:
Minor Revision
Review Comment:

This is one of the best papers in the food ontology domain I have read in several years, congratulations to teh authors!

The ontology seems overall well-planned and executed.

My comments are mainly on the broader strategies that authors may endorse to the adoption and re-use of the ontology.

1) INTEROPERABILITY VIA UPPER LEVEL ONTOLOGIES. While the ontology draws on ongoing major efforts, such as FoodOn, which strategies would the authors suggest for adopting this ontology from: BFO complying ontologies as well as non-BFO complying ontologies?

2) DYNAMIC ASPECTS. In what ways FATO could be supplemented to account for the dynamic aspects of allergens (e.g., how cooking and processing may affect allergenic characteristics of products)?

3) In the latter part of the paper, authors suggest the devlopment of a portal for directly interfacing food businesses with the ontology. Can the authors specify a bit further what do they mean by "food business" and what is their plan to ensure adoption by food businessesses?

4) Besides food businessess, could authors think of "downstream" adoptions of the ontology by, for instance, health providers, dining venues (e.g. school cantines and cafeterias etc)? Which strategies could be envisaged for the adoption of the ontology in those contexts?

5) FATO seems mostly limited to UK / EU data. Which strategies could lead to its adoption within global trade, where vocabularies for ingredients and food components follow inconsistent standards and choices?

Thanks again, I look forward to seeing this paper in print!

Review #2
By Yannis Marketakis submitted on 28/Nov/2025
Suggestion:
Minor Revision
Review Comment:

This paper presents the development of FATO, an ontology that focuses on food allergen management and traceability. Built using a range of existing knowledge sources, FATO is positioned as compatible with established food and product ontologies. The ontology comprises several thematic groups, including traceability and food safety, location information, ingredient and allergen declaration, and nutrient information. The authors outline the methodological steps followed in constructing the ontology and discuss its evaluation across different dimensions. They further provide indicative application scenarios demonstrating how FATO can help address persistent issues in food allergen management.

The paper is well structured and clearly written. It cites relevant literature where appropriate, and the authors position their work convincingly within the existing landscape, drawing on related ontologies and standards that informed the design and development of FATO. The appendix offers additional supplementary material that supports deeper engagement with the work.

I recommend acceptance of this paper, as it represents an innovative contribution in the area of food allergen management and traceability. I would, however, suggest that the authors also consider citing some well-known knowledge sources in the domain, such as FoodEx2 (European Food Safety Authority), FoodExplorer (EuroFIR, with nutrient-related information), and the WHO/IUIS Allergen Nomenclature. Additionally, the following work [1], which presents an earlier effort to build an allergens ontology, would be a valuable inclusion to the related works section:

[1] Valarakos, A.G., Karkaletsis, V., Alexopoulou, D., Papadimitriou, E., Spyropoulos, C.D. and Vouros, G., 2006. Building an allergens ontology and maintaining it using machine learning techniques. Computers in Biology and Medicine, 36(10), pp.1155-1184.