Foodtree goes mobile at Farmers Markets with photo-sharing app

Foodtree‘s mission is to revolutionize the food system by creating the world’s largest database of open food data, and they’re doing that with a free photo-sharing mobile app on top of their contributory web community that connects people to where their food is from and what’s happened to it from farm to plate.

Foodtree’s free photo app lets food lovers share photos of fresh food near them, tagged with where the food was found and where it’s from. So if you wonder where your food comes from, who produces it, or who has handled it along the way, this app is for you. More than anything, Foodtree is empowering consumers so they can make educated food choices based on their personal values.

During their launch weekend in hometown Vancouver (and Boulder, Colorado) in early July over a thousand photos were taken at four Farmers markets. During that weekend sales at those markets were up more than $15,000 over the previous weekend and some other interesting behaviour arose.

Farmers started using the Foodtree app to broadcast their daily harvests along with details about where their customers can buy their foods outside of the Farmers market network.

A new version of Foodtree’s free iPhone app is about to go live in the App Store and they’re expanding from two to six cities this week with the addition of Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Denver. Foodtree has incorporated feedback from early adopters and app users will now be able to comment on photos (similiar to Instagram), share photos socially while taking them, and follow their favorite farms, markets, and foods.

Foodtree was co-founded by Anthony Nicalo and Derek Shanahan in 2009 and was initiailly funded as part of Bootup Labs’ January 2010 cohort.