Transparency
How we score
Every food product on Looksee gets a single number from 0 to 100. We call it the Looksee Score. This page explains exactly how we calculate it — the math, the inputs, what we count, and what we do not count. No black box. No tricks.
The short version
Three pillars, one number
We add up points from three things on the label, then express the total as a percentage of the maximum possible. Higher is better.
| Pillar | Maximum points | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Nutri-Score | 40 | Nutrition quality (calories, sat fat, sugar, salt vs. fibre, protein, fruit/veg). |
| NOVA | 35 | How heavily processed the food is. |
| Additives | 25 | Risk-weighted penalty for ingredients flagged by regulators or peer-reviewed studies. |
| Total | 100 | Sum, rescaled to 0–100. |
If a pillar has no data on the label (e.g. NOVA group missing), we remove its slice from both the score and the maximum, so a product is never punished for a gap in the data.
The math
How we turn pillars into a number
We sum the points the product earned across the three pillars, divide by the maximum it could have earned, and multiply by 100.
Looksee Score = round( (earned points / available maximum) × 100 )
Example — a packaged biscuit:
- Nutri-Score D → 10 pts (out of 40)
- NOVA group 4 (ultra-processed) → 0 pts (out of 35)
- Additives — one to avoid, two to limit → 25 × (1 − 0.15 − 0.07 − 0.07) = 18 pts (out of 25)
- Total: 28 / 100 → Looksee Score 28
Pillar one
Nutri-Score
Nutri-Score is a public-health front-of-pack label developed by INSERM in France and now used across Europe. It looks at a 100 g sample of the food, adds up points for the bad stuff (calories, saturated fat, sugar, salt) and subtracts points for the good stuff (fibre, protein, fruit/veg/nuts content), and spits out a letter from A (best) to E (worst).
We use the Nutri-Score letter the same way the label does — we just convert it to a points value out of 40:
Best nutrition profile on the label.
Good — small concerns on salt, sugar, or fat.
Mixed — eat occasionally rather than daily.
Several nutrition red flags.
Worst nutrition profile in its category.
Why we trust Nutri-Score: it is peer-reviewed, government-backed in seven EU countries, and category-aware — a yogurt is graded against other yogurts, not against an apple. If a product does not have a Nutri-Score on file, this pillar is dropped from the total.
Pillar two
NOVA — how processed it is
NOVA is a classification system from researchers at the University of São Paulo that groups food by how much industrial processing it has undergone. There are four groups. The science is clear: diets dominated by Group 4 (ultra-processed) are linked to obesity, type-2 diabetes, and several cancers, independent of calories. We give zero processing-points to Group 4 — by design.
Whole or barely touched foods — fresh fruit, plain milk, dried beans, plain yogurt.
Things you cook with — oil, butter, sugar, salt. Rarely eaten alone.
Group 1 + Group 2, with a small number of additions — canned beans, traditional bread, cheese.
Industrial formulations with ingredients you do not have at home — soft drinks, packaged snacks, instant noodles, most cereal bars.
The group comes from the ingredient list, not from us — if the label has long names you do not recognise, hydrogenated oils, isolates, or industrial additives, it is Group 4.
Pillar three
Additives — country aware
This is where Looksee does something other apps do not. Most scoring apps treat every additive the same everywhere. But regulators do not — titanium dioxide (E171) is banned in EU food since 2022 and still allowed in the US. Potassium bromate (E924) is banned across the EU, Korea, Canada, and Brazil but is legal in the US. The risk depends on where the product is sold.
Each additive on the label is tagged with one of three risk levels, using the rules of the country the product is sold in:
| Tag | What it means | Points lost |
|---|---|---|
| Avoid | Banned in at least one major market, or clear human-evidence harm. | −15% of the additive pillar (max 25 pts) |
| Limit | Allowed but carries warnings, usage caps, or unresolved safety questions. | −7% |
| Safe | Authorised everywhere with no recent regulatory concern. | 0 |
The pillar starts at the full 25 points and we subtract the penalty. We cap the loss at 25 points so a product loaded with additives gets 0 on this pillar, never negative.
Risk levels are drawn from EFSA (EU), the FDA (US), MFDS (Korea), Japan's MHLW, and the IARC carcinogen classifications. When the rules differ between countries, the product page shows the regulatory status that applies where the product is sold.
Reading the colour
What the score colour means
80–100
Eat freely
60–79
Good choice
40–59
Eat in moderation
20–39
Limit / occasional
0–19
Avoid where you can
Where the data comes from
Sources we use
- Open Food Facts — the open-source product database, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Provides labels, ingredients, and the underlying Nutri-Score and NOVA calculations.
- USDA FoodData Central — the USDA's branded-foods database, used as a fallback for products primarily sold in the US.
- EFSA, FDA, MFDS, MHLW — for each flagged additive, we record the regulatory status in every jurisdiction we cover. This is curated by Looksee, not scraped from a single source.
- User contributions — submissions, photos, and corrections from people like you. Reviewed before publication.
Being honest
What the score does not tell you
- It is not personal advice. A score of 90 does not mean the product is healthy for you — only that, in its category, it is one of the better choices. Allergies, conditions, and medications matter — talk to a qualified clinician for those.
- Portion size is on you. The score reflects 100 g of the food. A small piece of high-fat cheese can be a great snack; a kilo of it is not.
- We do not score taste, price, or sustainability here. Eco-Score, where available, is shown on the product page separately and intentionally does not go into the Looksee Score — mixing food-safety and environment scores tends to confuse both.
- Missing data is missing data. If the manufacturer does not publish the ingredient list or nutrition panel, we cannot make it up. Where we have gaps we say so.
Help us improve
The database gets better with every scan
See a product that is missing, a photo that is wrong, or a risk tag that does not match what the regulator says in your country? You can submit corrections from any product page. Every contribution is reviewed and credited.