How it works
A barcode is just a number.
Everything useful happens after it. Here is the whole journey, from the digits under the bars to something you can act on in a shop.
Barcode
The number identifies the product record. It is not the evidence.
Product and market
Which pack, and which country's recipe you are holding.
Label
The declaration as printed. This is the evidence, and it is kept.
Parse
Ingredients, sub-ingredients, additives and allergens, separated out.
Context
Published thresholds and regulatory position, each one named.
Sources
Where every fact came from, and when it was recorded.
Profile
Four strands, reported separately. Never one score.
01 — The scan
Your phone reads the bars. That is all that leaves the device.
The digits go to us; no photograph and no location do. If your camera will not co-operate — bad light, a creased label, a cracked lens — typing the numbers does exactly the same thing, and always has equal standing in this product.
A scan that fails, or a product we do not hold, costs you nothing. You are never charged for a disappointment.
02 — The right version
Same number, different food.
A barcode identifies a product, not a recipe. The same item is often made differently for Ireland, Great Britain and elsewhere, and manufacturers reformulate without changing the number.
FoodSignal keeps those versions apart with the date each was recorded, and shows you the one that matches the packet in your hand — with the earlier ones still there, rather than overwritten.
03 — The label
The declaration is the evidence, so it stays.
You always get the ingredient declaration exactly as printed, and a readable version beside it — never instead of it. Choose any part below to see what FoodSignal adds.
Ingredients, as printed
Demonstration data for a product that does not exist. Choose any part of the declaration.
An allergen, emphasised
Capitals are how an allergen is emphasised on an EU label. Oats are a cereal containing gluten, so the emphasis is required.
Annex II, Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011
04 — The context
Context, never a verdict.
Declared nutrition is placed against published thresholds, with the scheme named, and anything FoodSignal worked out rather than read is marked as calculated. Additives are explained by what they do and the regulation that authorises them.
There is no score out of a hundred, and there never will be. Whether a food suits you depends on how much you eat, how often, and everything else you eat — four things a label cannot know.
Instead you get four separate strands: how the declared nutrients sit against those thresholds, how much of the declaration we have identified, what the label names, and how sure we are.
05 — The evidence
Every fact can be walked back.
Label
The declaration as printed on the pack, kept word for word.
Source
Who recorded it — our own editors, or a named, licensed dataset.
Date
When it was observed, because a recipe is only true on a date.
Licence
What the source permits, and the credit its licence asks for.
Review
Whether a person has checked it against the packaging yet.
When we do not have it
You see that plainly.
It costs you nothing, and you can send us the packaging in a few taps. Every submission is checked by a person before it reaches the catalogue, so the next person who scans it finds something trustworthy.