Monitoring Food Purchases: A New Approach to Healthier Choices

With a packet of biscuits in one hand and her smartphone in the other in the biscuits sucrées aisle of her local Hyper U supermarket west of Paris, Nathalie reacted strongly

“Look at that!” she stated, displaying her phone. 0/100 was highlighted in red.

“This is one of Malo’s [her 12-year-old son’s] preferred option, yet it contains excessive sugar, saturated fats, and four additives—including one posing health risks,” she explained.

Upon selecting the additive E450, Nathalie noted: “A mineral which, in excess, may cause bone marrow and kidney issues.”

“Honestly, including such ingredients in food targeted at children is unacceptable!” she remarked.

We examined an Italian alternative suggesting artisanal production by peasant women in black shawls.

The assessment showed similarly poor nutritional quality: “Malo now resists shopping with me,” Nathalie shared, “as we spend excessive time scanning items he desires.”

The app, triggering a red alert, proposed a healthier substitute—organic, incorporating wholewheat, fruit, and fiber.

“This leads to purchasing more organic products, which is costlier,” Nathalie observed.

Nathalie represents an expanding group utilizing Yuka, a French-developed app for healthier shopping across food, cosmetics, and toiletries.

Download it to scan barcodes of the six million products in the Yuka database (~1,200 new daily entries) for instant feedback—green for good, red for poor, yellow for borderline. Detailed analysis is possible via extended pages.

Launched in 2015, Yuka now serves 85 million users across 12 countries: multiple European nations alongside the US, Canada, and Australia.

The third-largest user base is the UK (~5 million), followed by France (~6 million), but the US leads with 28 million.

Notable US adopters include Robert F Kennedy Jr., former US Secretary of Health and Human Services, who identifies it as his preferred app.

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