The tech revolution app-solutely set to take health and nutrition by storm

Consumers wish to lead healthier lives by eating more nutritious food. That’s largely been established. 

In a world regulated by information – its sharing and accessibility – never has the consumer been more informed and able to find out which foods are the healthiest for the diet they require.

Apps will play a revolutionary role in the ways in which consumers shape their diet to best suit convenience and their daily lives. In essence, it is widely believed that personalised nutrition is the future. Apps will naturally be essential for providing this personal touch as we have seen in many other industries.

However, the food and beverage industry has been relatively slow to enter the apps market. Today, 41% of their apps are related to games and entertainment, according to the Nutrition App Strategy Paper by German firm Research2Guidance. The report found that only 11% pertain to health and fitness, while 17% focus on recipes as reported at informationweek.com. Meanwhile, small developers and food companies offer “real nutrition apps which are better at helping consumers personalise their consumption behaviour.”

Education of the consumer will be essential to ensure that we all know how best to eat healthily, avoid obesity and excessive sugar intake. Many believe apps to be of fundamental importance to achieve this. Apps allow consumers to access, understand and shape behaviour forcing industry to become more transparent as information becomes more and more available in the public domain.

“The whole market is consumer-driven. [Food producers] are reluctantly taking it up,” she said. “I don’t think it’s in everybody’s best interest to be transparent,” says Elke Kux, analyst at Research2Guidance. 

Health-aware consumers can use mobile nutrition apps to determine precisely the place food in which grown; to understand chemical usage; the ingredients so as to monitor fat, calories, salt, and other content.

In short, the use of apps in food will ensure that increasing power is placed into the consumer’s palm, holding industry to account and in theory providing the everyday individual with the best tool with which to determine their own health and nutrition: Transparent information.