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On any given day, there are around 2 million apps in the Apple App store, around 36,000 of which fall in the health and wellness category. Consistently at the top of that list is Yuka — the No. 1 health and wellness app for the better part of 2024.
Launched in France in 2017, the Yuka app started as a tool for French shoppers to better understand the health impacts of packaged food products while browsing the aisles of their grocery store. It’s since expanded to offer ratings for beauty and personal care products including shampoo, soap and color cosmetics.
Currently, one in three French consumers uses the Yuka app, a stat co-founder Julie Chapon has been working to replicate in the states since moving to the U.S. late last year. She’s made great progress.
Chapon told Glossy that around 25,000 U.S.-based consumers download the app every day, and 45% of those users eventually use it primarily for scanning beauty products. As of November, Yuka had around 16 million users in the U.S., Chapon told Glossy.
Developed with two additional co-founders, brothers Benoît and François Martin, the app is simple to use: Scan a product’s barcode and wait for a score out of 100, which is determined based on a proprietary algorithm that weighs medical studies and other sources the Yuka team finds trustworthy. A score of 75 or higher is deemed excellent, more than 50 is good, mediocre is above 25, while below 25 is judged as bad.
“I have the feeling that what happened eight years ago in Europe is now happening in the U.S.,” said Chapon, referring to the groundswell movement for more transparency on nutrition and beauty labels as well as more responsibility from manufacturers to replace potentially dangerous ingredients. “We see that there is a growing interest [in the U.S.] for more transparency [around ingredients] and for healthier products.”
The Yuka app is initially free, but advanced functions — like offline mode and the ability to look up products without a barcode — require a yearly fee of $10-$20. Yuka is 100% financed by these user fees. Brands cannot sponsor the site or pay for a score to be changed. Yuka does not accept affiliate revenue or participate in similar programs, nor does it accept money from brands for any reason, Chapon told Glossy.
Yuka has especially caught on among Gen-Z shoppers, who grew up more skeptical of opaque business practices around sourcing and safety testing. They now use “scan it on Yuka” as shorthand in closed circles to determine the merits of a product, Glossy has observed.
Yuka’s growth, which has been driven only by word-of-mouth, started picking up steam in 2022, but 2024 marked major growth milestones. In November, the app added an “instant petition” feature that bridges the communication gap between consumers and brands. In one step, Yuka users can send a message to brands using harmful ingredients to urge them to reformulate. The feature is currently available for food and will soon be available for beauty. Chapon and her team also offer free software to manufacturers to test a product’s score before launching.
Chapon hopes that Yuka will have the same impact stateside as it has in countries like France and Spain. “By changing their purchasing habits, consumers can push manufacturers to improve what’s in their products,” Chapon said. “In Europe, manufacturers are contacting us every day because they have improved what’s in their products and they want us to update the information of the product. … This has not happened yet in the U.S., but it’s our mission.”
