NHS Food Scanner

Name: NHS Food Scanner
Availability: InStock
Rating: 3.4538745880126953 (2717 reviews)
Author: Department of Health and Social Care (Digital)

Department of Health and Social Care (Digital)

2.72K reviews

PEGI 3

Government

1M+

Downloads

PEGI 3

Learn more

About this app

Ever wondered how much sugar is in your favourite cola or how much salt is in your sauce you are adding to your meals? Find out and discover healthier choices with the NHS Food Scanner app!

So it's time to get scanning! Just find a food or drink barcode or use the in-app search functionality to quickly reveal what's inside. You might be surprised by what you find!

Be amazed with the Augmented Reality within the app that brings to life the sugar, sat fat and salt in your food and drink right in front of your eyes!

The app is based on the most widespread data available to us. We're continuously working to improve it and we're adding more and more products all the time. The nutrient data in this app has been supplied and check by our partners at Brandbank and Food Switch and is updated weekly.

The number of sugar cubes, sat fat and salt sachets shown in app are based on grams per pack/100g/ml/portion when that information is available.

The weight of one sugar cube is equal to 4 grams
The weight on one sat fat lump is equal to 1 gram
The weight of one salt sachet is equal to 0.5 grams

It's now time to get Scanning!

Bring the sugar, sat fat and salt to life and really see inside your food.

Updated on

Aug 28, 2026

Data safety

Safety starts with understanding how developers collect and share your data. Data privacy and security practices may vary based on your use, region, and age. The developer provided this information and may update it over time.

No data shared with third parties
Learn more about how developers declare sharing
This app may collect these data types
Personal info, App activity, and Device or other IDs
Data is encrypted in transit
Data can’t be deleted
Committed to follow the Play Families Policy

Ratings and reviews

2.65K reviews

Paul D

September 2, 2026

** Don't download!!! Get Cronometer instead ** Geared towards families. Recipes and menus are for kids. Scanner does not work. Compared to the weight loss and walking app this is by far the worst!!! What's wrong with us single people? Come on NHS get your act together. If you want a better food scanning app try Cronometer. Most foods are recognised plus it does lots of other useful stuff. The free version is cool - yes there are short ads but it's much better than this trash!

4 people found this review helpful

Department of Health and Social Care (Digital)

September 4, 2026

Hi Paul, I'm sorry to hear there's been issues with the app. Please could you send an email to digitalproducts@dhsc.gov.uk so that we can investigate the issue?

Jamie H

January 11, 2022

The app just doesn't work. You line up the product and take 10 minutes for it to scan. Most likely come up with "we don't have this product, can you help us" ect. All I did was scan a milk bottle 😳. The design of the layout did look good, and could have been easy to use.... Only if it worked. I did look at the comments after downloading and I see I'm not the only one who's seem to be struggling with the scanning. I do hope they fix the bug, this app could achieve so much

214 people found this review helpful

Çınar Sovány

April 16, 2023

Out of 52 items scanned it found all of 3. Actually it found 4, but for one of them it had no info. And for those that were found the info is just what's on the item any way, in the form of the traffic light system. There's nothing about additives, preservatives and other added ingredients, it just shows salt, sugar and fat, which are right there on the front of the items any. A hit rate of barely 6% is poor and makes this app useless. You'll get more info just looking at and reading the label.

18 people found this review helpful