Yuka vs Open Food Facts: Scores, Data and Price Compared

Yuka and Open Food Facts both scan food barcodes, but they report different things. Yuka gives one 0-100 food score weighted 60% nutrition, 30% additives and 10% organic, with a paid Premium tier. Open Food Facts is a free, volunteer-built open database that shows Nutri-Score, NOVA and Green-Score as separate labels.

Key takeaways

• Yuka's published method weights its food score 60% nutritional quality, 30% additives and 10% organic dimension.
• Yuka caps a product's maximum score at 49/100 when a high-risk additive is present, and rates additives as risk-free, limited, moderate or high risk.
• Open Food Facts reports Nutri-Score A-E, NOVA groups 1-4 and an A-E Green-Score as separate labels, not as one blended number.
• Yuka lists 4 million food and 2 million cosmetic products. Open Food Facts reports 4,000,000+ products from 150 countries under the Open Database Licence.
• No published accuracy or error rate for Yuka is available, and none of these scores is an FDA rating.

Yuka vs Open Food Facts: Which Scoring Method Shows You More of the Label?

Yuka gives one combined food score, while Open Food Facts shows several separate labels. Yuka's score blends nutrition, additives and an organic dimension, and Open Food Facts reports Nutri-Score, NOVA and Green-Score independently.

Each approach answers a different question. A single score is quick to read on a shelf, but it compresses several factors into one number. Separate labels take more effort to read, yet each keeps its own meaning: nutritional grade, degree of processing and environmental impact.

What to check on each app:

• Yuka: one food score, with a maximum of 49/100 when a high-risk additive is present.
• Open Food Facts: Nutri-Score A-E, NOVA group 1-4 and Green-Score A-E, each shown separately.
• Both: the Nutrition Facts panel on the package lists the per-serving amounts for sugar, sodium and saturated fat, so it is the place to confirm the numbers an app summarizes.

How Does Yuka's 60/30/10 Food Score Work?

Yuka weights nutritional quality at 60%, additives at 30% and the organic dimension at 10%. If a high-risk additive is present, the product's maximum score is capped at 49/100.

The nutrition part is based on Nutri-Score and uses sugar, sodium, saturated fat, calories, protein, fiber and fruit and vegetable content. Additives are rated as risk-free, limited, moderate or high risk. Yuka says these additive ratings refer to EFSA and IARC recommendations and independent studies, as described in its food score method help article.

The 60/30/10 split is Yuka's own published description. No independent study confirming the weighting is cited here, so readers who want to test it can compare the app's breakdown with the ingredient list on the package.

A practical test is to take one product, read its ingredient list and Nutrition Facts panel, and then check whether the additive rating and nutrition part line up with what the label shows. Differences are worth noting, because the app's total is a weighted blend rather than a list of the individual inputs.

Is Yuka accurate?

No published accuracy or error rate for Yuka is available, so its scores cannot be benchmarked here. Readers should treat the score as Yuka's own published method rather than a measured result.

An accuracy claim would need an independent test in which the same products are scored by several methods and checked against a common standard. No such study is cited in this comparison. Nutri-Score and NOVA are published classification systems, but that does not by itself show how consistently any app applies them to a given product.

How Do Nutri-Score, NOVA and Green-Score Work in Open Food Facts?

Open Food Facts shows Nutri-Score A-E, NOVA groups 1-4 and an A-E Green-Score as separate labels. NOVA group 4 marks ultra-processed foods, and the Green-Score grades environmental impact.

NOVA sorts foods by degree of processing, from group 1 to group 4, and group 4 is the ultra-processed group. The project's NOVA classification page explains the groups, and its Green-Score page covers the environmental grade. The Green-Score is an A-to-E environmental score that was renamed from Eco-Score at the end of 2024. The Open Food Facts app shows Nutri-Score A-E and NOVA group 1-4 for products it lists.

The labels above are app and project classifications, not regulatory categories, so a NOVA group or Green-Score grade should be read as one tool's output rather than an official rating.

The FDA has proposed, but not finalized, a front-of-package 'Nutrition Info box'. Nutri-Score, NOVA and app scores are not FDA ratings. The FDA's front-of-package nutrition labeling page covers that proposal.

Which App Has the Bigger Food and Cosmetics Database?

Yuka lists 4 million food products and 2 million cosmetic products, and adds 1,200 new products every day, according to its app page. Open Food Facts reports more than 4,000,000 products from 150 countries, contributed by more than 100,000 contributors, and describes its project on its discover page.

The two counts are self-reported and are not measured against each other here. Yuka's country-by-country coverage was not disclosed, so a US-only comparison cannot be made from the published figures.

Relevant database details:

• Open Food Facts is open data under the Open Database Licence, which lets anyone reuse it with attribution and share-alike.
• Open Food Facts decodes additives (E-numbers), allergens and nutritional grades.
• Whether Yuka uses Open Food Facts data today was not disclosed.

Is Yuka Free, and What Does Premium Add?

Yuka is listed as free on the App Store with in-app purchases. Its Premium membership is an optional upgrade, and the features it adds are set out below.

Premium adds offline mode, search without scanning and dietary-preference alerts for palm oil, gluten and lactose.

Yuka says it has no ads, that brands cannot pay to advertise and that it does not sell user data. Its 2025 revenue was $11,884,771 from premium subscriptions plus $57,694 from books and calendars, according to its independence and funding page.

Is Yuka app free?

Yuka's Premium membership is $15 per year on Yuka's Premium page, and the App Store listing shows Premium Member at $10.00, $15.00 or $20.00. The app itself is listed as Free with In-App Purchases, and the paid extras are the Premium features described above.

Is Open Food Facts Free, and Who Funds It?

Open Food Facts is listed as Free on the App Store, and its database is open data under the Open Database Licence. The project describes itself as a non-profit association of volunteers on its discover page.

Open data under this licence can be reused by anyone, provided they give attribution and share the result under the same terms. Its funding sources are not detailed in this comparison.

Does Yuka Score Cosmetics, and Does Open Food Facts?

Yuka scores cosmetic products and lists 2 million in its database. Open Food Facts is presented here as a food database, and no cosmetics score from it is described.

The 60/30/10 food weighting covers food products. This comparison does not describe how cosmetic products are weighted, so the food figures should not be read as cosmetic results.

Aurascan covers food, drinks, cosmetics, personal care and household products. Its approach is to explain each ingredient rather than assign a single score across categories.

Where Does Aurascan Fit Next to Yuka and Open Food Facts?

Aurascan is a label scanner for food, drinks, cosmetics, personal care and household products that explains each ingredient instead of giving one combined score.

Each ingredient is checked against published studies and regulator rulings, with a plain-English explanation, evidence strength and sources.

Plan features, as Aurascan lists them:

• Free: 5 new products a day, free re-scans, ingredient explanations, scientific sources, scan history and public rankings.
• Plus: look up products without scanning, side-by-side compare, alternatives and a health journal.
• Pro: a food diary, and checks against your health conditions, sensitivities and dietary rules for you and your household.

Plan prices are not quoted here, and no Aurascan ratings or user counts are cited.

How Do Yuka and Open Food Facts Compare at a Glance?

The table sets each app's published features side by side. Where a detail is not covered by the published information, the cell says so.

Feature	Yuka	Open Food Facts	Aurascan
Headline output	One food score, capped at 49/100 with a high-risk additive	No blended score; Nutri-Score A-E, NOVA 1-4 and Green-Score A-E shown separately	Plain-English verdict per ingredient
Weighting	60% nutrition, 30% additives, 10% organic	Not applicable	Not applicable
Additive handling	Risk-free, limited, moderate or high risk	E-number decoding	Each ingredient checked against published studies and regulator rulings, with evidence strength and sources
Food database	4 million products	4,000,000+ products from 150 countries	Not stated
Cosmetics	2 million products	Not described	Covered
Data sources	Not disclosed	Contributors, open data	Not stated
Data licence	Not disclosed	Open Database Licence	Not disclosed
Price	Free; Premium $15 per year on site; App Store lists $10.00, $15.00 or $20.00	Free	Free, Plus and Pro plans; prices not quoted here
App Store rating	4.8 from 102K ratings	4.4 from 145 ratings	Not disclosed
Business model	Premium subscriptions; no ads and no sale of user data, per Yuka	Non-profit association of volunteers	Not stated

Which Related Pages Compare Other Scanner Apps?

Two related pages cover the same apps from other angles. Yuka vs Fooducate: 0-100 Score vs A-D Grade sets Yuka's score next to another app's letter grade, and Aurascan vs Open Food Facts: What Each One Tells You looks at the open database from the ingredient-explanation side.

Limitations: this comparison relies on each app's own published descriptions and App Store listings. It does not test how either app scores a given product, and no accuracy data for either app is available.

To see how each ingredient on a package is explained, scan a label with Aurascan.