Last reviewed: 7 May 2026
We built the additive scanner for the in-aisle moment. You're standing in front of the chiller, you've got eight minutes before the parking ticket expires, and you want to know whether the cheaper own-brand yoghurt has the same colourings as the branded one a shelf up. Reading both backs of pack and Googling each E-number doesn't fit in eight minutes. Pointing your phone at one barcode, then the other, does.
Open the app, hit the scan button, point at the barcode on the back of the pack. Here's what lands on your screen, in this order:
Five seconds, give or take, depending on the lighting and how steady your hand is. Two scans in a row to compare two products — about twelve seconds total. Quicker than reading either label.
The reason we surface specific additives explicitly — rather than just listing them inside the ingredients line — is that some of them carry concrete public-health context most people never see on the pack. The pack lists them by code; we tell you what the code means.
Six artificial colours — E102 tartrazine, E104 quinoline yellow, E110 sunset yellow, E122 carmoisine, E124 ponceau 4R and E129 allura red — carry a mandatory warning under UK food law: "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children". This came out of the 2007 Southampton study and is FSA policy. We pick these out on every scan, named, with the FSA warning attached. They turn up in some sweets, sauces, soft drinks and cake decorations.
In July 2023 the IARC (the WHO's cancer agency) classified aspartame as Group 2B — possibly carcinogenic to humans. We surface that classification on every scan that finds aspartame, alongside the JECFA acceptable daily intake context. You'll see it in many "diet", "zero" and "no added sugar" drinks, some chewing gums, and some yoghurts.
Sulphur dioxide and sulphites are one of the 14 UK-mandated allergens. They can trigger asthma symptoms in sensitive people. Common in dried fruit, wine, some processed meats and some soft drinks. We tag any sulphite on the line, and if you've got sulphites in your saved allergen profile (Pro), they trigger the allergen warning on the same scan.
Used to cure bacon, ham, salami and chorizo. The IARC classifies processed meat as Group 1 — causing bowel cancer in humans — and the NHS caps processed meat at 70 g a day. We surface that on cured-meat scans. Plain truth, with the source qualifier; we don't soften it.
Used to bind oil and water in standard sliced bread, low-fat spreads, ice cream and many sauces. Emerging research links some emulsifiers to changes in gut microbiota with regular intake. The evidence is still evolving, so our note describes what's been observed rather than reaching for a verdict.
Synthetic antioxidants used to stop fats going rancid. Sometimes in cereals, snacks and chewing gum. EFSA has lowered the acceptable daily intake for BHA over time as the evidence base has shifted; we note that on the scan rather than reassuring.
Profile setup wants quiet and a coffee — not the chiller aisle at 5pm on a Friday. Spend two minutes at home tagging the 14 UK-recognised allergens that apply to your household (and any free-text triggers — a specific emulsifier, a sweetener you've reacted to before). Once it's saved, every barcode scan after that flags matches automatically. We say "isn't in the ingredients we have" rather than "this product is free from X" — accuracy and liability matter.
The barcode on the back of pack is what we read, not the front graphic. Most modern phones cope with shop lighting without trouble, but a frozen pack with condensation or a glossy plastic wrap with overhead glare can slow the scan from one second to four. Tilt the pack slightly out of the glare, hold the phone parallel to the barcode, give it a steady half-second. If it really won't read, you can search by name or type the GTIN manually.
Branded products with national distribution are almost always in. Smaller store-brand items, regional ranges and recent launches are sometimes missing — we'll show you what we have and let you submit the pack as a request from inside the app. A real human in our team reviews submissions and we usually add them within a few days. We don't pretend the database is exhaustive and we don't fail silently when it's thin.
The fastest way to use this in the aisle is comparison, not interrogation. Scan the branded jar, scan the own-brand jar, look at the two grades and the two additive counts side by side. If one has the Southampton Six and the other doesn't, that's visible immediately. If both have the same recipe, you've just saved yourself the price difference with a clear conscience.
Anything you scanned in the aisle can be added to your daily food diary in one tap once you've eaten it. Free tier covers 25 food log entries a day, which is enough for most people. Pro adds the suspected-triggers analysis on top, which cross-references your symptoms against everything you've eaten in the previous 24–48 hours.
We read the standard UK food barcode (GTIN/EAN) — the same format used on every pack across UK supermarkets. You scan any UK barcode the same way, whether you're in Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl, Waitrose, Co-op, M&S or anywhere else, because every UK pack carries that one barcode standard. We do not have per-retailer integrations and we don't claim to.
What we don't do: scan loose produce without a barcode (you can use AI meal scan on Pro for that), substitute for reading the back of pack when you have a serious allergy, or guarantee that every reformulation has hit our database the same week the new pack hit the shelf. Manufacturers reformulate without re-issuing the barcode, so there's always some lag. We display the date a record was last verified inside the app and you can submit a correction in two taps.
What we won't do: tell you a food is "safe". Regulatory approval is a regulatory category, not a biological verdict. We describe what published science says about regular consumption — linked to, may disrupt, raises, regularly eating this is associated with — and fall silent when the evidence is unsettled. We're a tracking and transparency tool, not a regulator and not your doctor.
The barcode scanner and the per-product grade are free. So is the public E-number lookup at /e-numbers/. We don't paywall the headline thing the page is named after.
See every additive and E-number on the pack. FSA-flagged colourings called out by name. Our per-product grade alongside. Five seconds.
Get NutraSafe on the App StoreFree to log up to 25 foods/day. NutraSafe Pro · £3.99/month · iOS.
Yes. Open our app, point your phone at the barcode on the back of any UK pack, and within a few seconds you see the full ingredients line, every additive and E-number flagged with a plain-English note, FSA-flagged colourings called out, and our per-product grade. The same scan works in any UK supermarket — Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl, Waitrose, Co-op, M&S — because every UK pack uses the same GTIN/EAN barcode.
Every additive on the ingredients line is picked out and tagged with what it does — colouring, preservative, emulsifier, sweetener, antioxidant, thickener — and a one-line note on what published science says. The Southampton Six colourings (E102 tartrazine, E104 quinoline yellow, E110 sunset yellow, E122 carmoisine, E124 ponceau 4R, E129 allura red) carry the mandatory FSA warning about hyperactivity in children, and we surface that explicitly. Aspartame (E951) is shown with the IARC Group 2B classification (possibly carcinogenic to humans) attached.
We don't have per-retailer integrations. We read the standard UK food barcode (GTIN/EAN) — the same format used on every pack across UK supermarkets — so you scan any UK barcode the same way wherever you are. Some store-brand long-tail items may not be in the database yet; if you hit one, you can request it from inside the app and we add it.
No. We don't use reassurance language on additive notes. Regulatory approval is a regulatory category, not a biological verdict, and the science evolves. Our notes describe what published research says — linked to, may disrupt, raises, regularly eating this is associated with — and fall silent when the evidence is unsettled. We're a tracking and transparency tool, not a regulator and not your doctor.
The download is free. The free tier includes barcode scanning, the full ingredients list, our per-product grade, the public E-number lookup at /e-numbers/, and up to 25 food log entries a day. NutraSafe Pro (£3.99 a month, monthly only, iOS) unlocks the detailed additive concerns breakdown, vitamin and mineral tracking against UK NRVs, allergen warning detail, AI Coach, AI meal scan and the suspected-triggers analysis.