Custom Cosmetics & Food Scanner Apps Development

About 40% of the adult US population is suffering from some sort of health condition such as hypertension, high cholesterol or obesity. As such, there is an increased focus on a healthy lifestyle and exercising to reduce the harmful effects of such conditions and to avoid them if possible with the right diet, exercise, and avoiding harmful chemicals. 

One new facet that is added into the mix for a healthier lifestyle is apps and mobile phones. With health apps, users can know the right amount of calories, common calorie count of popular food items, healthy recipes, and ordering from health-focused stores online. 

For most people, it is a chore to eat healthy. Not to mention verifying the contents of the food you eat by going through each item and checking out its ingredients. As such many people lose their habit of eating healthy or don’t even form it. 

That is where apps like Yuka can help people make more healthier food and cosmetic choices easily. With the convenience of scanning the food or cosmetic item and instantly knowing what kind of ingredient it contains and their positive or negative impact on your health, you can instantly filter the right and wrong items and make the correct choices. Yuka allows users to scan an item, whether cosmetic or food, and instantly generate a report on the item’s ingredients, including many chemicals and preservatives that may not have been mentioned and make the right choice as consumers. It will also put pressure on manufacturers to not cut corners and provide the highest quality product to the end user. 

“ With just a simple scan, you can know all the harmful chemicals in your food or cosmetics with the help of Yuka. Yuka is continually expanding its database so you can scan any food or cosmetic  item and know their ingredients and harmful chemicals if any and make a quick decision based on the color score”

In this article, we are going to discuss the key features, the process of making the app, and possible tech stack for the Custom app like Yuka.

Key Features of Custom Cosmetic & Food Scanner App

Color Scale

The color scale will either go red or green or in between based on the amount of harmful chemicals and ingredients in the product. A green colour score will indicate that the product is good to consume while a red color will indicate a significant presence of harmful chemicals in the product. 

Barcode & Item Scanner

The barcode and item scanner will scan the item and list out the ingredients from the database and as per the back sticker. Barcodes of products can be used to gather the correct information about the product. 

Suggestions

Users will be given a set of items that are a better and healthier alternative than the one they are currently using or are planning to use. Many users may still end up consuming unhealthy items due to a lack of alternatives and as such providing a quick list of alternatives can help them make a better choice. 

Calorie Tracking

Users can track the calories of all the food items they have consumed so that they can count calories and opt for more healthier diets. 

Personal Recommendations

Users and influencers can provide a list of items by category and diet etc to the users for purchase and consumption recommendations. 

Scan History

Users can access the scanned product history to avoid scanning the same items over and over again and get the ingredients list quickly. 

Allergen Alerts

Based on the ingredients in the product, users can get an instant allergen alert as a push notification so that users who have specific allergies can avoid that product. 

Nutrition Program

Users can opt for a custom nutrition program based on the items scanned or based on items suggested. 

Standard Features

Standard features such as push notifications, social media login, user profiles should be added for a holistic experience. 

Making The App

To make the app you need to keep these key considerations in mind. 

What features will be there in your MVP? The MVP will contain all the requisite features to launch the app, gather user feedback and build a user base. Incremental improvements over the MVP can help you provide a newer and better version of the app. 

Make sure that you understand your market well and create a specific niche if you have to. As you will need to build a database of products, start with the major brands and go into more niche and unique products. 

Also, monetization will be a major challenge as you can’t take any money from ads or sponsorship as that will make people lose trust from the app. We suggest that you offer a freemium app, major features are free but some key features are paid.

Tech Stack

The approximate technology stack of the app

• Kotlin for Android App
• Swift for ios app
• Node.js for back-end
• Cloud environment: AWS
• Online Payments: Paypal, & Braintree.
• Elastic email, email notifications
• Socket io for real-time notification
• Database: MongoDB, Hbase, Cassandra, Postgres, MailChimp Integration
• Google Maps
• Google Places
• Google Directions
• Card.io
• APNS
• Firebase
• Facebook SDK for Facebook login

Tech Stack and Team

The following team may be needed for app development

• Business Analyst
• Project Manager
• UI/UX designer
• Android/ios developer
• Back-end developer
• Quality Analyst
• DevOps

Conclusion

Having trust on the items you consume is of paramount importance And as such apps like Yuka can help consumers make the right choices. As an app entrepreneur, you can realize the multiple niches you can target with such custom apps like health, food, and cooking. Do drop us a line if you want to explore this idea further with an NDA.