Yuka - Food & Cosmetic Scanner

Yuka Review: Transparent Scores, but Additive Penalties Ignore the Dose

What Free Covers: Scans, History and a 6-Million-Product Database

The free tier covers scanning, scan history and favorites, but you must register first, and free scans need a mobile or Wi-Fi connection. Every barcode is checked against one database shared by all countries the app serves, listing 3.6 million foods and 2.3 million cosmetics, and the app runs in English, Spanish, French, Italian and German, on phones only. When a barcode is unknown, you photograph the label; if over 20% of that text isn't recognized as ingredients, an outside service transcribes it, and the product stays unrated meanwhile. Infant formula, alcohol, cigarettes, diapers and supplements are never scored. Top 10 rankings unlock only after you invite a friend, and only in the US and France.

The 60/30/10 Food Score and the 49-Point Additive Cap

Food scores weigh nutrition at 60%, using the Nutri-Score formula for sugar, sodium, saturated fat, calories, protein, fiber and produce; additives take 30%, and a certified organic label adds a 10% bonus. Each additive gets one of four risk dots, and one high-risk additive caps the product at 49/100. Fats are judged by their share of saturated fat, so every butter rates poorly. For cosmetics, the riskiest of roughly 12,500 catalogued ingredients sets the range: one red ingredient keeps a product below 25/100. The weak spot is dose: the additive criterion counts whether an additive is present, not how much is used, so a trace weighs as much as a heavy dose. The company calls its ratings opinions, not medical advice.

Premium From $10 a Year, No Ads and No Brand Money

Premium adds name search, alerts for seven diets such as gluten-free and vegan, unlimited history, and offline scanning limited to the 100,000 most-scanned products; EWG's Healthy Living, by comparison, lists its Premium at $19.99. The App Store lists annual plans at $10, $15 or $20, all with the same features, and you can also pay on the company's website. Prices are US figures and vary by region. Subscriptions are the business: the independence page puts 2025 revenue at €10.2 million (about $11.9 million) from them against €49,678 from books and calendars, with no ads, partnerships or sponsorships. Google Play's data form lists name, email, contacts, purchase history and optional approximate location as collected, none shared with third parties, and deleting your account erases its data.

Call-Out: A Pre-Written Email to 5,000 Brands Over 103 Additives

Since November 2024, a product containing one of 103 additives the company rates high-risk can trigger a Call-Out: a pre-written email, copied to the company, or a post on Instagram, LinkedIn or X aimed at one of the 5,000 most-scanned brands using them. The press kit counts over 1.5 million call-outs by February 2026. You are told if a brand drops the additive. Not every red-dot additive qualifies: the list covers additive families found in very large numbers of products and is updated as needed. Product sheets can be shared by email, SMS or messaging apps, but scan history cannot be sorted or grouped, and a poorly rated product with no good alternative gets no recommendation.