A new smartphone app proves you are what you eat

From Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution to Alice Waters, people are really interested about the quality of food they serve to their families. A new smartphone app called Barcoo aims to help shoppers make smart and sustainable decisions at the supermarket.

Benjamin Thym of Germany was tired of reading the find print on packaging to find more information about the stuff at his local megamart. He wanted an instant link to data so he could make a quick but informed purchase. So, he hatched the idea of a smartphone application in 2007 that later became Barcoo.

Barcoo looks like a traditional price comparison app but adds important green related features. Perhaps a shopper was interested in a bag of potato chips. They would use the app and their smartphone to take a peek at the barcode. Barcoo scours their library of information taken from company statements, rankings, user feedback, and data from social responsibility studies.

Results from the app are quite detailed. Food products are labeled with nutrition information like sodium content complete with a traffic light based ratings system. A bag of chips with a massive amount of sodium would get a red or yellow light in the app. Additional information includes total fat, saturated fat, and sugar levels.

Many socially conscious consumers have taken to carrying sustainable seafood guides in their pocketbooks or wallets to make informed decisions about purchasing fish. Barcoo provides info from the International Seafood Guide and saves users one more piece of paper to carry.

The app also looks at a measure of success called the triple bottom line: company finances, how they treat employees, their dedication to being environmentally friendly.

Thym said that surveys show that forty percent of shoppers say that they are “critical consumers” but only four percent really follow through with research. Barcoo is their stab at transparency via the iPhones and Android phones in pockets and purses of curious consumers. Too bad that the app is only available in German.