Who am I and what is FoodFilter?
My name is Ernest and I’m a biochemist and food technologist. Over the years, I have advised my friends with allergies, athletes and young parents who are especially attentive to the health of their children. All of them were nutritionally conscious, trying to avoid questionable preservatives, food colorings and other additives, trying to control the amount of sugar and remember all those harmful E-additives. And some of them seriously experienced the horror of an acute suffocating attack because of allergies.
There are so many people that either do not know the dangers of food additives or just gave up checking food. I found another way to help - I made a mobile application FoodFilter that, like a personal assistant, finds gluten, soy, peanuts, tartrazine and dozens of other allergens, additives and ingredients that are undesirable for the user. This could be done just by scanning the package barcode through the phone's camera.
I put all my savings into the FoodFilter app and created a beta version. Today the beta version is available, you can try it out in Estonia (app store account region), and make it even more useful and convenient by giving us your feedback. Our plan is to give free access to people with one or two allergies. For those who need to control more allergies and diets, we offer a monthly subscription of 3 euros in order to become a self-sufficient business and ensure that the application runs smoothly and benefits all of our customers.
The app was created in a group of friends in Ida-Virumaa, a region of Estonia where, according to our observations, residents have the greatest distrust of the composition of food products and, on average, don’t have the best level of proficiency in the state language, in which the composition of products is often described. Surveys in Narva, Kohtla-Järve and Jõhvi revealed that, on one hand, the respondents prefer to purchase budget food, and on the other hand, they’re afraid of preservatives, but they can’t clearly identify them. We believe that our application will help to avoid harmful components not only for wealthy users who can afford any food, but also for those who are forced to buy products with a longer shelf life, sacrificing their health due to the presence of preservatives, artificial colors and other components that can cause health problems.
Who is in my team?
Fortunately, I’m not alone in this project. We have grown to a team:
- Enel - marketing and communication
- Daria - development marketing and social networks
- Tarieli - advertising consultant
- Mehmet – backend developer
- Ilja - quality assurance engineer
- Kuanysh - frontend developer
There are many of us, but if you have the desire and the opportunity to help, you are welcomed to our team. We need nutritionists, allergists, business consultants and developers.
Why do we need money and which rewards do we offer?
In order for the application to be available to users right now, we pay monthly for both server services and development with our own funds (which are very scarce). We hope our app will help millions of people to choose food consciously in the future, but we need your help now, as it is very hard to start without support:
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First goal 2000€: Payment for a cloud server for a year.
The server provides uninterrupted communication with the databases that the application constantly accesses. If you help us pay for server services, the application will work much faster despite the increasing load.
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Additional goal 1500€: Bug fixing, application stabilization.
We will make sure that the application doesn’t freeze, doesn’t switch off, and adequately copes with switching from a mobile network to Wi-Fi, to an incoming call, so that everything works well with the functionality that it has. By paying for the bug fixing, we can make the application easier and more logical to use.
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Additional goal 2500€: Adding a map to the application.
We want to make sure that a person with a gluten intolerance, a vegan or a follower of some kind of diet, can open the map and see not only the restaurants, but also the dishes that suit her/him in these restaurants. Not everyone likes to cook, but food restrictions lock a person in the kitchen, as in prison. An interactive map makes it easy for you to find ready-made meals that are safe for you both in your hometown and while traveling. If you’re on a diet, you can open a restaurant on the map and see data on the energy value of dishes. Eat with pleasure and add restaurant dishes with ease to your diet!
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Additional goal 5000€: Code upgrade.
Friends, we really hope that you liked our test version of the application. Unfortunately, we won’t last long on bare enthusiasm. We have to rewrite part of the code so that the application can work with a large number of users at the same time (meaning that it becomes scalable). We can’t do everything ourselves, but outside specialists are very expensive. With this budget, we’ll be able to release a full-fledged free and paid version of the application.
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Additional goal 4500€: Purchase of additional databases.
Now we have in our databases from ⅓ to ⅔ of food products that are available in large chain stores in Estonia. Additional databases must either be purchased or assembled manually and checked. Those products that users add need to be moderated. This money should cover the costs associated with bringing the number of products in the database up to 90-95%. This will allow the user to receive quickly and correctly information about the scanned products in Estonia and up to ⅓ of products from neighboring countries in the Baltic states and Scandinavia.
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Additional goal 18000€: Entering the international market.
Unfortunately, Estonia is too small as a market for the app: we won't be able to return our investments for the app by continuing to work only in Estonia. We have to test the application here and bring the maximum benefit to our customers, and then expand to the US and European market. It’s also very important to understand that the application is very useful for tourists. After all, their allergies and food intolerances don’t disappear abroad. Therefore, we simply have to enter the international market. And this requires a lot of money to solve legal nuances, make promotion, launch new databases and train specialists who speak the languages of the country in which we want to expand our activities. Please support our growth and development into a great international business. This goal is, fortunately, flexible. The more money we raise, the better marketing and preparation we can afford to enter the rather difficult, but uniform and promising US market this year.
We offer various valuable rewards, incl. an annual subscription to the premium features of our application. The subscription will include up to 3 diets, 4 allergies and 7 additional ingredients according to your taste. The official cost of an annual premium subscription to the application is expected to be in the range of 35-40 euros/year. When we launch a premium subscription (spring-summer 2023), you’ll receive a notification that your subscription has been paid for a year in advance.
Who are our main target clients?
Your financial support is very important to our team and product. However, you can do even more! We encourage you to share this campaign with your loved ones and friends who have food allergens, intolerances and diets. So let's start helping each other today!
Share it with:
- parents who check food before buying it for their children trying to reduce the amount of harmful additives in their diet (food colorings, preservatives, etc);
- people who have food allergies and restrictions such as soy, gluten, milk, eggs, and dozens of other ingredients;
- athletes and people who are losing weight and monitor their daily calorie intake, as well as the ratio of the energy value and the amount of salt and sugar;
- bodybuilders on diet;
- people on a low-carb or keto diet.
- generally, everyone who cares about numbers.
And of course, share this campaign with restaurant owners. I really hope that we’ll develop cooperation, which will be beneficial for them, us and their clients.
What are our main achievements?
We have our first partners and achievements. FoodFilter has entered into strategic partnerships with companies that enrich our databases (productinfo24.com and lexi.market), has successfully completed training at the Y Combinator Startup School and the Prototron Foundation as well as won the prestigious W3N Blockchain startup pitch competition in Narva in December 2022.
But that's not all, with your help we plan to take the leading position in Estonia among applications aimed at the health of users this year already this year!
