FoodOn integrates three different approaches to term management, which culminate in the GitHub repository’s published ontology files.

• OntoFox imports: For incorporating terms provided by other ontologies like UBERON, PATO, ENVO etc.
• Robot managed term patterns: For curating terms that all have the same annotation and relation requirements, such as organism x anatomy part.
• Individually curated terms: For terms that don’t fit one of the robot managed patterns.

Various curation processes such as editing a file or running a command, are indicated in blue below.