Yuka founders publish first report on the impact of the app on Italians’ food consumption. The result seems to be hitting the mark: consumers are leaving foods with unbalanced recipes or containing problematic additives on the shelf.
Two years of growth
The app was born in France in 2017, and today it is widespread in 12 countries and has 33 million subscribers. As we have extensively explained in previous articles, the use of Yuka on the smartphone allows us to discover by scanning the barcode the nutritional profile of the food or the composition (Inci) of a cosmetic.
In the countries where it is active, Yuka has 3 million scans per day. In Italy, where it landed in September 2020, it is growing fast. So far, it has been downloaded to the phone by 3 million consumers.
Yuka’s report
The newly released report assesses Yuka use reported by 13,842 Italian users.
The surveyed sample is characterized as follows:
- 86% have been using Yuka for at least two months,
- consists of 66% women and 34% men,
- 57% use the app every time they do their shopping,
- 48% scan mostly food products, 5% almost only cosmetics, 47% both categories,
- is predominantly in the 45-64 age group (57 percent), less often (15 percent) in the 35-44 age group. Even fewer among the youngest (5 percent are under 25, 10 percent are in the 25-34 range) and the oldest (13 percent among the over-65s ).
Simple and effective
The revolutionary aspect of Yuka is in the ease of use and reliability of the ratings, which are based on the NutriScore, organic certification, and presence of additives, commented with literature references. The fact that it is free obviously puts the turbocharger.
Therefore, despite criticism and attempts to silence it-in France with lawsuits and in Italy also with an antitrust proceeding-Yuka continues to garner support.
The impact on the shopping cart
Interviewees explain its success well:
- 97% stopped buying some products, 96% because of the presence of problematic additives (without Yuka hard to recognize),
- 95 percent put the negatively judged product back on the shelf,
- 84 percent buy more organic products (rewarded by the Yuka rating system with an additional 10 points).
The effects on nutrition
Knowing the recipes of packaged foods helps improve diet at home. Surveyed users say they
- Buy less and better, that is, products of high nutritional quality (90%),
- cooking more (53%),
- Using Yuka to educate their children (81%).
And the industry cannot stand idly by
The power of consumers is evident in guiding industry choices. Consider palm oil, which all but disappeared from the scene when products containing it remained on the shelf.
90% of Yuka users believe the app can motivate brands and companies to come up with better products. 83% also believe that this system is more effective in influencing businesses than the authorities (a belief that is perhaps exaggerated). And they believe Yuka’s use could help the regulatory evolution on substances allowed in food.
Yuka’s Revenge
Forced by the Antitrust Authority to make statements about the relativity of Yuka’s food ratings, the founders of the successful app say they are satisfied with the outcome of the report.
‘The results of this study confirmed the impact of the project on consumers’ purchasing habits and health, but also on society. So, we will not stop here, but will continue to spread Yuka on a large scale. In fact, we plan to focus all our energies on developing the app in other countries, such as Italy, Spain, the United States and Canada.
We aspire to further deepen the information we provide to consumers and expand our analyses regarding the environmental impact of products. The task is daunting, but we are confident that we can help change things.”
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
