Grocery shopping can be quite a hassle, especially when managing a healthy and yummy food intake. Understanding and discerning the unhealthy ingredients in long lists can prove arduous and demoralising, especially when it comes to cosmetic products.
No one has the time to go through arduous research to determine the healthy and the harmful products. That is precisely why Benoit Martin developed an ingredients scanner app named Yuka.
Table of Contents:
- Yuka App Overview
- Yuka App Review
- What Is Yuka App
- How Does the Yuka App Work
- Features of the Yuka App
- Is the Yuka App Legit?
- Is Yuka Popular?
- Yuka App Costs
- Pros and Cons of Using the Yuka App
- Takeway
Android version: download here
IOS version: download here
But is the Yuka app reliable? Is Yuka legit?
This Yuka app review delves into the intricacies of this product scanner app and attempts to answer all the questions you may have.
Rundown of the Yuka App
| App Name | Yuka |
| Available on | Google Play, App Store |
| Functions | Scans food and cosmetic items to rate their usability |
| Cost | $14 per annum |
Review and Ratings
| App Stores | Reviews | Rating |
| App Store | 24k+ | 4.8/5 |
| Google Play Store | 93k+ | 4.7/5 |
What is the Yuka App?
Benoit Martin, Julie Chapon, and Francois Martin developed the Yuka app in 2017. This innovative application allows users to scan any cosmetic or food items through their barcode and assigns the products scores out of 100 depending upon their quality.
The app rates products based on several factors, including nutritional quality, the presence of additives, and the organic dimensions of its ingredients.
The app has separate grading criteria for rating cosmetics: it classifies products into four risk categories depending on their hazardousness. The red dot indicates highly hazardous, the orange dot indicates a moderate risk, the yellow dot hints at a low risk, and the green dot shows the product is risk-free.
The Yuka app boasts a straightforward and intuitive interface that is impartial and autonomous about its ratings, analysis, and product approvals. The app is also ad-free.
But is the Yuka app accurate?
The website claims to be, and so do several users. However, most Yuka app criticism recommends users not to value the app’s recommendations over those of professionals, even if it declares a product hazardous.
Nonetheless, Yuka is an innovative and educational app that allows users to discover better skincare products and healthier food options with convenience. Thus, the answer to the question “how accurate is Yuka” depends upon you.
How does Yuka Work?
The Yuka app functions on convenience: it allows its users to make prompt judgments about a particular food or cosmetic products based on the score and colour it designates to it. You can understand the scoring scale through the following table:
| Colour | Score |
| Red | 0 to 25 |
| Orange | 20 to 50 |
| Light Green | 50 to 75 |
| Dark Green | 75 to 100 |
The app also allows users to delve deeper into the matter and view a breakdown of the negatives and positives of the product in question, which corroborate its scoring. The details are backed with links to scientific research.
So if you ask, “Is the Yuka app trustworthy?” We cannot say no.
Yuka derives its food ratings from the following weighted considerations:
- 60%: From Nutriscore
- 30%: From Additives
- 10%: Based on the organicity of the product
Since food labeling is different in different countries, Yuka derives the Nutriscore from the elaborate nutrient-profiling system formulated by the British Food Standards Agency.
However, the UK uses a traffic-light indication system instead and color codes ratings for salt, energy, sugar, fat, and saturates. The US, in contrast, uses the FDA’s nutrition facts labels, breaking ingredients down as a percentage of the recommended daily allowance.
So is Yuka accurate? The answer may be complicated. Although Yuka covers much of what is present in the current European labels, it also considers potentially hazardous additives.
Let’s look at an example for reference: the UK’s traffic light system presents Diet Coke with a green light, but Yuka gives it an orange score of 41 out of 100. This is primarily because of the several additives found in the product, particularly E338, E950, E150d, and E951.
Tapping for further information on any of these additives, for example, E950, shows it to be an intense sweetener with a relatively negative rating because it can hamper weight control and promote metabolic disorders. To cope with this confusion, Yuka informs its users that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is re-evaluating the sweetener’s safety. It also links to credible research that allows users further insight into the matter.
Features of the Yuka App
The Yuka App reviews attribute acknowledgment and appreciation to the Yuka app because of its innovative features, some of which are as follows:
- Evaluates products by keeping their organic dimensions, nutritional profile, and additives inclusion in view
- Offers transparency and clarity in one quick scan, allowing users to make an informed decision
- Assigns a risk level to each ingredient, derived from present scientific research
- Provides evaluations and product suggestions with whole impartiality, without the external influence of any brand or manufacturer
- Allows access to a comprehensive info page for all products to help users understand their scoring
- Analyses all the ingredients of a product, no matter their number, before making a scoring
Is the Yuka App Legit?
Yuka is an independent company that functions on revenue generated through a nutrition program, calendar and book sales, and a premium app subscription that costs around $14 annually (it provides access to additional innovative features, including an offline mode, unlimited history, access to a search bar, and personalised alerts for ingredients such as lactose and gluten).
The important point is that the company does not accept advertising money and simply says no to recommendations influenced by brands. It also suggests alternative products for those with poor ratings but based on local availability, higher ratings, and matching categories, not promotions. It is also 100% independent and does not accept collaborations with other brands looking for publicity.
The Yuka app started with food reviews but expanded to cosmetic ratings upon rampant user requests. The cosmetic evaluation keeps the potential effects on the environment and health in consideration and thus determines whether products or their ingredients are polluting, endocrine disruptive, irritants, carcinogenic, or allergenic.
Although cosmetic evaluations build upon scientific research, they lack distinctive frameworks such as Nutriscore to inform them. The choices of cosmetic alternatives are also relatively restricted, as most of the recommended products are far more expensive than the ones in question. So although it is easy to make food choices for a balanced and healthier diet, choices are more challenging for cosmetics.
Is Yuka Popular?
Yuka’s popularity has grown considerably recently, especially in its native land of France. This can be corroborated by the fact that the French supermarket chain Intermarche declared that it would reform 900 recipes of its own brand products to improve its Yuka scores by cutting down on sugar, salt, and additives. Several other brands are now using Yuka ratings and scores for products in development, intending to improve them before release.
Yuka has made a recent addition to its French version: the Eco-Score. This score grades food products from A to E depending on their environmental impact by considering factors such as seasonality, manufacturing, transport, and packaging.
The assistance of French government scientists and several partner organizations made this feature possible for Yuka, with many renowned retailers such as Carrefour and Lidl following suit.
This innovative feature is, unfortunately, not readily available in other countries, such as the US, because of a lack of general information to make the necessary calculations. However, Yuka’s team claims they are working to adapt the application for the US market, even though it might take a while.
Ideally, there should be no need for an app like Yuka, as food regulations should be strong enough to filter out products that do not pass stringent safety tests. However, this app is helping users make informed decisions in the real world, prompting them to make healthy choices for themselves and the environment.
Yuka Plans and Pricing
Yuka is free to download and use, but it also comes in a Premium version that costs $14 annually and regulates more informed consumption through added transparency. The premium version also offers users the following features:
- Unlimited scans throughout the year
- Offline scanning
- Product search without the need to scan them
- Setting up alerts according to one’s preferences and conditions, such as gluten, lactose, vegetarian, palm oil, etc.
Pros and Cons of the Yuka App
✅ Yuka Pros:
- Completely independent rating system.
- No paid promotions.
- Ad free.
- Utilises legitimate sources of nutrition information.
- Cosmetics rating system with tailored algorithm.
- Free
❌Yuka Cons:
- Cosmetic rating does not have sources like Nutriscore.
- Rating system is European and cannot be accurately applied to US safety standards.
Wrapping Up
Yuka is an informative and fun app that can help you update your grocery list and choose better cosmetic and food products. However, Yuka’s criticism suggests further research before labeling a product inherently “bad.”
Is Yuka legit, you ask?
The three million barcode scans the app performs daily might offer you an answer. The app has managed to attract a substantial amount of attention from users all across the globe, easing grocery shopping for users and ensuring they make healthier and better decisions for themselves and the environment.
