Questions people ask about Skop

It reads a food product's barcode with your phone's camera and gives you two things: a processing score that's the same for everyone, and a verdict — matches your preferences, doesn't match, or we can't tell yet — worked out against rules you chose yourself. Every verdict names the ingredient and the rule behind it.

"Matches your preferences" — every rule you set is met. "Doesn't match your preferences" — at least one rule isn't, and you'll see which ingredient and which rule. "We can't tell yet" — the data doesn't say, and you'll see exactly what's missing.

No. It's a 0–100 measure of how processed a product is, read from how the product is classified and how many additives it declares. It's the same for everyone, it never feeds into your verdict, and Skop doesn't rate products on their own. It isn't medical or dietary advice.

It's four different situations. If the ingredient list is missing from the database, photographing the label fixes it — for you and for everyone after you. If an ingredient's origin isn't stated on the pack (mono- and diglycerides, E471, is the classic case), that's a gap in the label itself; you choose per rule whether it counts as not matching or as matching with a note. If we haven't written a rule for an ingredient yet, that's our gap, not yours. And a "may contain" traces line can't be photographed away — check the pack. In every case Skop still shows what it does know.

The full explanation is on the methodology page.

Because you chose different rules. The verdict is a comparison between one product and one criteria set, nothing more. Different rules, different verdict, same product.

No. It's a reading aid for labels. For allergies and health decisions, always check the pack itself and talk to a professional.

"Contains" is the allergen declaration: allergens that are ingredients, usually emphasised in the ingredient list. "May contain" is a traces statement about what else was on the production line. Skop keeps them apart and never counts a declared trace as "Matches". Because the underlying data is crowdsourced, always check the pack itself for allergens.

The code the EU and the UK give a permitted additive — E120 is carmine, E407 is carrageenan, E471 is mono- and diglycerides. Labels print the name, the number or both. Skop matches by a canonical identifier, so it treats them as the same ingredient however the pack spells it.

Four presets to start from — plant-based, religious diet (halal, kosher and more, you pick yours), allergen-aware (the fourteen declared allergens), and a limit on added sugar you set yourself — plus rules for individual ingredients you name. Every rule is editable and everything is described by the substance, never by a condition. For allergens, always check the pack itself as well.

From Open Food Facts, a public database maintained by volunteers worldwide, under the Open Database License (ODbL). Because people write it, some products are missing an ingredient list or carry an old one. The fix is in the app: photograph the label and Skop reads it, checks your rules and adds it for everyone. About ten seconds.

Any packaged food with a barcode that's in the database. Coverage is strongest for products sold in Europe and thinner elsewhere, and it's uneven by field: allergen declarations are nearly always present because labelling law requires them; ingredient lists are typed in less often. If a product isn't there yet, you can add it. Whatever the database says about allergens, check the pack itself.

Your rules and your history live on the phone and open without a connection. Looking a product up needs one — that's when Skop fetches the label data.

No. Both are saved on your phone only. Signing in is optional and exists only to sync your rules across your own devices — and it isn't switched on until you choose it on a screen that says exactly what would be stored. Usage statistics, if you allow them, are counts: how many rules you have, never which.

No. The camera runs only while you scan. Nothing is recorded, stored or uploaded — the barcode number is all Skop uses. When you photograph a label, the text is read from the image and the image is then discarded.

Scanning stays free, always, with all four presets and your last 20 scans. Plus adds custom ingredient rules, criteria sets for more than one person, and full scan history. It renews automatically until cancelled; cancel any time in your App Store or Google Play subscriptions and Plus keeps working until the period ends.

A criteria set they chose to share. The page shows only what they decided to publish — the rules, and their name if they added it — nothing else about them. Open it in Skop and every product you scan is checked against those rules; you can change any of them afterwards.

Rules and history on your phone go when you delete the app. A synced account is deleted in the app under Settings, or by email if you no longer have the app — everything is on the deletion page.

Read the deletion page.