world-of-food.net: What Leaf & Footpath Readers Should Know

The site was a food-related link directory that ran from roughly 2007 to 2014, assembled under the auspices of two European food-science organisations and operated from the Netherlands. It collected links to food information resources from around the world rather than publishing its own reporting. Anyone arriving at the address now should check who currently controls it, because the original project ended and the name may have passed to other hands. What appears there today is 'The Larder Index', an independent single-column monograph that annotates the old directory and cites the real organisations behind it, without forms or commercial claims.

What was world-of-food.net, and who stood behind it?

The directory ran for roughly seven years, from about 2007 to 2014, and presented itself as a worldwide collection of links to food-related information. Its purpose was to point visitors towards sources on food production, safety and science rather than to publish original articles in bulk. It sat alongside a broader food-information initiative of the same era. Two organisations stood behind it. The project was an initiative of Food-Info.net, a food-science information effort, and of EFFoST, the European Federation of Food Science and Technology. EFFoST is a real federation bringing together European societies working in food science and technology, which gave the directory an institutional footing unusual for a links page. The operation itself was based in the Netherlands, with a postal address at PO Box 8129. That combination, a named federation and a verifiable postal address, is the kind of detail a careful reader can use to check whether a site is what it claims to be. It also marks the boundary of what the original project promised: an index of links, curated under the name of these organisations, not a peer-reviewed publication. Since the directory ceased around 2014, any content appearing at the address afterwards cannot automatically be attributed to Food-Info.net or EFFoST. Before trusting material found there today, look for a current operator, a working contact address and a stated relationship, or the absence of one, with the original organisations.

What did the directory actually contain?

The original site was structured as a directory rather than a magazine or a database of recipes. Its core was a set of roughly 200 country pages, each gathering links and short descriptions relating to the food industries of one country. Alongside these, around 40 sector pages covered specific branches of the food industry, so a reader could approach the material either by geography or by industry type. The directory also carried listings for international organisations working on food matters, and for journals that published on food-related subjects. This gave it three layers: countries, sectors, and institutions or publications. A fourth element mattered for how the site grew: submission forms allowed organisations and websites to ask to be added to the listings. In practice this means much of the content was supplied or proposed from outside, then arranged by the site's editors. For anyone evaluating material from the directory today, that structure is worth keeping in mind. A country page or a sector page was an editorial collection of pointers, not a reviewed study, and the quality of each entry depended on who submitted it and what was checked before publication.

How did the site change after it stopped being maintained?

After the directory stopped being maintained, the domain went through several distinct phases, and knowing them helps a reader judge what they are looking at. From 2018 to 2022 the domain was parked: it served no original content, so nothing from that period should be treated as the work of the previous editors. In 2025 the domain reappeared carrying spam restaurant content, material unrelated to the original directory in both subject and intent. Anything dated to that phase can be disregarded as a source. The domain today hosts a different kind of project. It is now a single-column independent publication called The Larder Index, which offers an annotated reading of the old directory's arrangement rather than a restored version of it. The Larder Index does not claim to be the revived directory, and it does not claim any connection with Food-Info.net. It carries no commercial claims and offers no submission form, so nothing on it results from the open submission process the original site used. In practical terms: treat the original directory as a historical artefact, disregard the parked and spam years entirely, and read The Larder Index as one independent commentary on the old structure, not as a continuation of it.

Why does this matter to readers who keep field notes?

If you keep field notes, you already know the value of separating a direct observation from a report of what someone else saw. The same discipline applies to the sources you cite in a notebook or a group log, and a few habits help.

First, cite the organisation, not just the web address. A domain name can outlive the institution that built the material on it. When a project closes, the address may lapse, be renewed by someone unconnected, or be repurposed entirely. A note that reads "found at this URL" tells a future reader nothing reliable. A note that reads "field guide published by such-and-such group, dated whenever" records who stood behind the information, which is what you would want to know if you returned to it years later.

Second, when you use an older source, check whether the pages you are reading now still come from the people who built the original resource. Archives and retrospectives sometimes preserve the text of a vanished site, and some of those are built by people with no connection to the original authors. That does not make the archived copy useless, but it does change what it is: a second-hand account of a source rather than the source itself.

Third, treat annotated retrospectives as commentary. They can be genuinely useful, particularly when the original material has disappeared and someone has taken the trouble to describe what it contained. But an annotation carries the annotator's choices: what was quoted, what was summarised, what was left out. If a retrospective is all you have, say so in your notes, and describe it as a report about the source rather than the source itself.

The principle is the one that runs through all careful recording: write down what you actually have, not what you assume is behind it. A citation that names the originating organisation, includes a date and notes whether you saw the original or a second-hand description will stay useful long after any single web address stops working.