By Jesse Newman
Nothing gets into Dendy Young’s supermarket shopping cart unless it first passes the Yuka test.
Yuka is a mobile app. It features an orange carrot icon and lets users scan product bar codes. For food, it generates a score from one to 100 based on nutritional quality, additives and whether it is organic.
Shoppers like Young heed Yuka’s advice. The 77-year-old entrepreneur said he has sworn off Hellmann’s mayonnaise ever since the app pointed out that it is made with calcium disodium EDTA, a synthetic additive used to preserve foods.
“I used to live on the stuff,” Young said of Hellmann’s “real” variety, which Yuka rates a 15, or “bad.” Now he uses butter instead.
Some in the food industry see the future of food labeling in Yuka and similar mobile apps. As consumers increasingly scroll their phones to decide what to eat, such apps are one way to render immediate judgment on a product. Often, they suggest what they deem to be healthier alternatives.
Already food-scanning apps are changing what grocers sell and consumers buy, and prompting some manufacturers to reformulate their products to boost scores.
Adoption of the apps has been fueled by the same skepticism toward food ingredients, companies and regulators that animates the “Make America Healthy Again” movement spearheaded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with his wife, Cheryl Hines. PHOTO: FRANCIS CHUNG/PRESS POOL
“I use Yuka. My wife uses it,” Kennedy said in late April. He said that HHS plans to encourage other companies to develop similar apps.
The apps’ growing popularity poses a new challenge for food companies. Chicago-based Conagra, maker of Healthy Choice frozen meals, says its products are among the healthiest in the category—low in fat, calories and sodium, with high-quality protein and no artificial colors.
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