Is there a good app for scan food barcodes to log nutrition?
Heavily used and done badly — the most disruptable kind of gap.
94
Opportunity /100
95
Demand /100
67
Competition /100
90
Execution gap /100
6
Apps serving it
44
Mined complaints
What users complain about
The most common complaints behind apps that try to scan food barcodes to log nutrition, mined and clustered from real reviews:
| Complaint area | Type | Mentions | What a user said |
|---|---|---|---|
| food database missing items even with barcode | missing-feature | 2 | half of what I eat isn't available in the search even if I use a barcode |
| lacking food database | missing-feature | 2 | Database is also lacking |
| inaccurate food logging even via barcode scan | reliability | 1 | It's not accurate, even when scanning the food package barcode |
| barcode scan returns wrong calories | reliability | 1 | I scanned eggs the carton say 70 calories but it registers 35 |
| barcode scanning issues for some foods | bug | 1 | there’s a few things while scanning the barcode for certain foods |
| barcode scan fails or returns unrelated foods | reliability | 1 | multiple everyday items that wouldn't show up when scanned or would come up as something extremely unrelated |
| barcode scanner fails or returns wrong food | bug | 1 | when you try to scan a food barcode... it doesn’t know them or gives the wrong food |
| sparse food database requires manual entry | missing-feature | 1 | Noom doesn't have many foods saved in the calorie counting section. I had to manually enter almost everything |
| barcode scan calorie counts inaccurate | reliability | 1 | Whenever I scan an item the calorie is off by 40cal which is huge if your trying to lose weight |
| no barcode scanning for recipe ingredients | missing-feature | 1 | the inability to scan labels when adding recipe ingredients |
| cant enter info for foods not in database after scan | missing-feature | 1 | whenever I scan something most of the time the item is not available on the app and you're not able To enter the info |
| barcode scanner no longer recognizes foods | missing-feature | 1 | Scanner doesn't recognize foods that Fitbit previously recognized |
Apps that already serve this
| App | Rating | Ratings | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noom Weight Loss, Food Tracker | 4.7★ | 865,829 | Free |
| Nutrition Coach: Food tracker | 4.8★ | 87,684 | Free |
| Carb Manager: Keto & Macro Log | 4.8★ | 729,122 | Free |
| Cal AI - Calorie Tracker | 4.8★ | 324,584 | Free |
| MyFitnessPal: Calorie Counter | 4.7★ | 2,334,433 | Free |
| Lose It! – Calorie Counter | 4.8★ | 758,188 | Free |
Should you build it?
Heavily used and done badly — the most disruptable kind of gap. Opportunity here scores 94 out of 100 — a function of demand, how crowded the field is, and how badly the existing apps perform. Use the live map to compare it against adjacent tasks.
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