App for the labelling maze

At the request of the Dutch Ministry for Public Health and Welfare, the Netherlands Nutrition Centre Foundation (Voedingscentrum) is developing an app called the ‘EtiketWijzerapp’ to help consumers understand the information provided on food labels. We posed four questions to Gerda Feunekes from Voedingscentrum.

There are already lots of food and nutrition-related apps. Why does Voedingscentrum want to develop its own?

“It’s true that there are other apps around, but none of them are as versatile as ours. This app enables you to compare different brands of the same products based on health aspects. You can also see whether a product fits into our ‘Wheel of Five’ nutrition guidelines and what would be a healthier alternative. If you’ve got a jar of peanut butter on the table in front of you, you can simply scan the barcode to see which allergens it contains and the salt, sugar and fat content. You could compare that against a different brand of peanut butter, because the app contains that data too. This lets you explore the information at your own convenience; you might want to try a different brand next time, for instance.”

“It’s very important that the data is reliable”

Which opportunities will this offer manufacturers and brands?

“Healthy products and increased interest in what food products are made of and where they come from are all part of a consumer trend. For manufacturers, the app is a handy way of demonstrating how good their products are and showing that they offer transparency about the ingredients. If the products aren’t listed in the app, consumers can’t include them in their comparisons, which would be a shame. Thankfully nearly everyone is involved; almost all companies that are members of GS1 have given us access to their data. It’s very important that the data is reliable, of course. That’s another good reason for manufacturers to provide us with their own data – they retain control of it.” 

How will you ensure that the data stays up to date?

“The data is synchronised daily. As soon as a manufacturer changes any part of the labelling information, that information is also updated in GS1 Data Source – and if anything is changed in that, it is also immediately changed in the app. GS1 is our preferred source, simply because it’s the biggest source. But we’re also using a few other sources. GS1 Data Source already contains most labelling information about pre-packed food products sold through supermarkets, plus GS1 works internationally. Our ultimate goal is to have one communication line between the app and just a single source: GS1.”

When will the app be ready for launch?

“We expect it to be ready this autumn. We are still at the pilot stage and a few technical imperfections are being ironed out. But we’re already on the right track, because the test version of the app has been well received in a preliminary survey of consumers and industry professionals, achieving an average score of 7.7.”

www.gs1.nl