American Heart Association Launches Data Challenge to Transform Food and Nutrition Information

The American Heart Association has launched its second annual Periodic Table of Food Initiative data visualization challenge, themed "Future Food + Nutrition Facts," which remains open until January 30, 2026. This interdisciplinary competition aims to transform how nutritional information is communicated by leveraging one of the world's most advanced open-access food composition databases. The challenge calls upon teams from public health, nutrition science, bioinformatics, data visualization, food systems, and policy backgrounds to reimagine nutrition information using molecular data from The PTFI.

The PTFI represents a comprehensive effort to build detailed molecular profiles of thousands of foods worldwide, including full ingredient and nutritional details along with information about how and where specific food products were grown. This initiative, managed by the American Heart Association and the Alliance of Biodiversity and the Center for Tropical Agriculture with funding from The Rockefeller Foundation, reveals the biomolecular complexity of food beyond traditional calorie and macronutrient measurements. According to Selena Ahmed, Ph.D., global director of The Periodic Table of Food Initiative, "This is a translational competition meant to rethink what we know about food, how we share that data in compelling ways and how it informs action."

Participants will access comprehensive profiles and data from The PTFI's scientific database available at https://foodperiodictable.org, which informs the origin, structure, and relevance of various whole and processed foods. The challenge requires creating compelling visualizations that move beyond traditional nutrition facts, with winning designs demonstrating how food information can better reflect nutritional quality, molecular diversity, sustainability impact, or cultural relevance. John de la Parra, Ph.D., director of Food Initiatives at The Rockefeller Foundation, emphasized the significance of this effort: "For the first time in history, we are able to detect the full richness and complexity of all the chemistry contained in the world's food biodiversity. But how do we communicate that? How do we make it mean something, have impact and ultimately improve human and planetary health?"

The competition features two tracks: a general design category and a specialized research category for scientists submitting technical summaries. With $40,000 in cash prizes, including $20,000 for the top entry, the challenge aims to translate complex biomolecular and environmental information into actionable insights for diverse audiences including consumers, policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers. Winning visualizations will be showcased at an upcoming PTFI Science Symposium in 2026 and across digital platforms, evaluated based on creativity, scientific accuracy, accessibility, and real-world relevance. This initiative represents a significant step toward bridging the gap between complex scientific data and practical decision-making in food systems, potentially transforming how nutritional information is understood and utilized globally.