Yuka sprang up in France in 2017, quickly establishing a loyal following among shoppers looking for more health information about their food. The premise is simple: scan a label and get a health score between 0 and 100 based on that product’s nutritional value, the presence of additives and a bonus if it’s organic.
The app is now used by over 80 million people across 14 countries, including the US and the UK, and has acquired immense influence over those who use it.
For example, 94% of US users will return a product to the shelf if it gets a ‘bad’ rating, according to Yuka’s own research, while 92% are buying fewer ultra-processed food products since using the app.
For shoppers it’s simple. But many food businesses have consequently been left scratching their heads.
When consumers visit supermarkets with Yuka in hand, it may be unsurprising to find items like Monster energy drinks and a Rustler’s chicken sandwiches scoring poorly.
Perhaps more counter-intuitively though, Proper Chips, a UK brand of crisps developed as a healthy alternative to potato chips, have a lower rating than Doritos and Walkers. While Alpro’s unsweetened oat milk - with an ‘excellent’ 78/100 - scores a far superior rating to its unsweetened soy milk variant, which languishes as ‘poor’ on 49/100.
In these times, Yuka is feasting on the emergent need for clear and easy nutritional information
But it is not the just the rating system concerning food companies. Since 2024, Yuka has allowed users who scan a food containing a ‘high-risk’ additive to send a direct message to the brand asking them to remove it.
This has created a pressure to which many companies are succumbing.
Chobani, the US dairy maker, recently removed dipotassium phosphate from its oat milk after receiving such requests and now says its product contains only natural ingredients. Yuka claims the cheese giant Bel Group did similar by removing calcium phosphate from its vegan Boursin. Bel Group could not be reached for comment.
It appears to be a widespread trend, with the average number of high-risk additives per product falling 13% since 2019, according to Yuka’s analysis of its France database. It is particularly exaggerated in some categories, with breakfast cereals seeing a 58% drop in that time and pre-prepared meals down 48%.
For Yuka, this is the definition of success. The app is explicit in its goal of pushing manufacturers towards changing their recipes. “We believe consumers have a direct power over the manufacturer, so if we can empower as many consumers as possible, we can push manufacturers to reformulate quicker than political means or other institutions,” says Gabriella Sebag-Weingrad, Yuka’s US country manager.
Sebag-Weingrad recognises Yuka cannot claim all the credit for the changes taking place across the food industry. After all, the app’s rise coincides in large part with both the proliferation of GLP-1 obesity drugs that limit cravings, and a growing consumer caution over ultra-processed foods in general.
Is Yuka driving food and drink NPD?
Still, “The Yuka Effect” was highlighted in a report by Boston Consulting Group last year, which found sales of highly-processed categories in the US are now stagnating or declining after years of above-market growth. “A shift is underway from big brands’ processed products in favour of more natural choices from new entrants and house brands,” it said.
In these times, Yuka is feasting on the emergent need for clear and easy nutritional information. A survey of US shoppers last year found 72% are trying to avoid UPFs even though many can’t confidently define what they are. Yuka’s simple scoring system gives shoppers a clear-cut judgment within seconds.
It places Yuka firmly in the zeitgeist of today’s modern food trends with the same scepticism driving users toward the app also fuelling the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which last year moved to eliminate petroleum-based synthetic dyes in food. US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr is a known Yuka fan.
But there are concerns Yuka is oversimplifying a notoriously thorny issue, with even businesses who score highly on the app questioning the possible shortcomings of boiling every food down to a simple rank.
“Reducing a product to a single score inevitably has limitations,” says Segun Akinwoleola, the founder of Gym Kitchen, a maker of healthy ready meals in the UK.
Akinwoleola says Yuka has helped his brand build credibility and consumer trust, yet he recognises it may be promoting a “simplistic good vs bad framing that overlooks the nuance of healthy eating”.
Most of a food’s Yuka score is based on Nutri-Score, a European labelling system recommended by the World Health Organization and the European Commission. Under the scheme, a food scores positively for high protein or fibre and will be punished for high quantities of calories, sugar, salt, and saturated fats. Yuka also takes into account recommendations by major health organizations and independent studies which are reviewed by the app’s scientific team.
“This is all well and good,” says Federica Amati, nutrition lead at Imperial College London and head of nutrition at Zoe, the personalised nutrition app which has developed its own Processed Food Risk Scale.
“But there are many factors that Yuka doesn’t account for which we know are pivotal to understanding food’s impact on long-term health.”
When it comes to additives, for example, while it can be valuable to look at each individual compound as Yuka does, it is also crucial to consider the cumulative ‘cocktail’ effect, Amati says, pointing to a recent study which found that different mixtures of additives increased the risk of diabetes even though individual additives on their own did not.
Will Yuka help food and drink manufacturers?
Yuka also doesn’t consider ‘hyperpalatability’, she adds, a feature of food which can override our fullness signals and lead us to eat more than we need. Manufacturers create this by using specific amounts of fat, simple sugars, carbohydrates and sodium that are rarely found in nature.
Amati is focused on what’s not in Yuka’s scoring system, but there are also question marks over what is. The organic bonus, for example, has raised eyebrows among some nutritionists given the lack of evidence for a nutritional benefit compared to conventionally grown foods.
Yuka recognises its methodology isn’t perfect, yet, perhaps more importantly, it argues the app is pushing more people to limit their consumption of heavily processed foods, something most nutritionists will likely agree is a plus.
That’s why many welcome the changes it is helping the food industry to make. The changes such as French supermarket Intermarché reformulating 900 products and removing 142 additives back in 2019, or Walmart following suit last year by removing artificial dyes and 30 other additives from its US own-label products by January 2027.
Such change is increasingly common with over three-quarters of manufacturers in France now acknowledging their Yuka score influences product formulation, according to a survey by French polling agency IFOP.
These efforts are filtering down through the food system with major ingredient companies also now reporting regular requests for help in reformulation, according to Burcu Keskiner, Cargill’s food and beverage category senior director.
Yuka itself says it receives many requests from food manufacturers looking for help on how to improve their scores but in all cases, they are declined
“Rather than simply avoiding sugars or fat, shoppers seem to be gravitating toward ingredients they recognize and trust—those that are nature-derived, label-friendly, and purpose-driven,” she says.
For any company concerned about their Yuka score, additives are often the priority here given they contribute 30% of the overall score and are often designated as ‘high-risk’ by the app. One of the most commonly found in the crosshairs is monosodium-glutamate (MSG), an ingredient used as a flavour enhancer to impart a savoury umami taste into processed meats, snacks, soups and sauces.
Fortunately, for any manufacturer looking for a replacement, long-term public concerns over the additive mean several alternatives already exist. Major Chinese yeast provider, Angel Yeast, is one of those plugging its natural yeast substitute as an MSG replacement, while its other yeast options can help manufacturers remove sodium and sugar in soya and almond drinks by masking certain off-notes.
Yuka itself says it receives many requests from food manufacturers looking for help on how to improve their scores but in all cases, they are declined. Yuka has strict rules on independence. It has developed a free tool though which allows manufacturers to test out new formulas of their products and generate a score.
For all its successes though, Yuka clearly still has a long way to go. Additives like food dyes, preservatives, and sweeteners remain prolific in western diets, no more so than in the US where processed foods contain an average 3.1 additives per product, according to Yuka’s database analysis.
But Yuka has demonstrated a clear reach and influence at a time when shoppers are moving away from ultra processed foods in their droves. The app’s rapid rise is indicative of a wider trend towards healthier and more nutritious products, one food manufacturers increasingly recognise they ignore at their peril.