Source: https://verify-veg.com/blog/verify-veg-vs-yuka/
Language: en

# Verify Veg vs Yuka: Which Food Scanner Fits Your Diet?

Two shoppers scan the same cereal bar. One sees a health score out of 100. The other sees whether it fits a vegan or halal diet.

Yuka rates how healthy a product is. Verify Veg checks whether it fits your diet. Pick the wrong one and you trust a green score on something you still cannot eat.

Facts below come from each app's listing and help pages, retrieved 2026-09-24.

> **Key Takeaways**
> - Yuka scores nutrition and additives; Verify Veg checks ingredients against a diet.
> - Yuka's Premium alerts cover vegetarian, vegan and pork-free, but not halal, kosher, Jain, beef-free or nut-free.
> - Verify Veg covers ten diet modes and reads a photographed ingredient list when a barcode is missing.
> - Yuka Premium costs 15 euros a year; Verify Veg is free, with a Pro upgrade.

**TL;DR: Yuka and Verify Veg answer different questions.** Yuka scores nutritional quality, additives and organic status. Verify Veg gives a diet verdict on the ingredient list, across ten diets including halal, kosher and Jain. Ask "can I eat this?" and Verify Veg fits; ask "is this good for me?" and Yuka does.

## The question each app answers

Yuka is a health-scoring app. Its US listing calls it "a free mobile app that allows you to scan the barcodes of food and personal care products and instantly see their impact on your health" ([Yuka, App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yuka-food-cosmetic-scanner/id1092799236), retrieved 2026-09-24). Foods are rated on nutritional quality, additives and organic aspect.

Your diet is not one of those criteria. A product can score well and still contain gelatin, carmine or animal rennet, the ingredients that catch most vegan, vegetarian and halal shoppers ([non-vegan E-numbers](/blog/e-numbers-vegan-list/)).

Verify Veg answers the other question: scan a barcode or photograph an ingredient list, and it flags what conflicts with your diet, explaining anything it cannot assess.

## What Yuka checks, and what it does not

Yuka's coverage is wide: 85 million users claimed, 6 million products (4 million foods, 2 million cosmetics), and 4.8 stars from 99,845 US ratings on 2026-09-24.

Premium adds diet alerts on top of the score: vegetarian and vegan, pork-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, soy-free, sulfite-free and palm oil-free, with recommendations that adapt to them ([Yuka Help Center](https://help.yuka.io/l/en/article/qzr8gkygvp-does-the-application-take-allergens-such-as-gluten-lactose-etc-into-account), retrieved 2026-09-24).

What Yuka does not check:

- **Halal, kosher and Jain diets.** None appear in its published preference list, and there is no beef-free or nut-free option.
- **Traces.** It does not count traces listed after the ingredient list, such as "may contain traces of wheat".
- **Labels it cannot read.** Lists outside French, English, Italian, German and Spanish are not recognized, nor are alcohol, sugar, supplements and products sold by weight ([Yuka Help Center](https://help.yuka.io/l/en/article/hne4wxktxj-unrecognized-products), retrieved 2026-09-24).
- **Accuracy.** Yuka tells users to check the label for allergies, intolerances and dietary restrictions; it cannot guarantee its data.

## What Verify Veg checks, and what it does not

Verify Veg is a diet-compatibility scanner. Its listing and site FAQ cover ten diet modes: vegan, vegetarian, Jain, kosher, halal, no beef, no pork, gluten-free, lactose-free and nut-free. You can combine modes and add up to 200 custom ingredients to flag.

Two features matter when a barcode is missing. The AI camera scan reads a printed ingredient list from a photo, covering bakery items, deli products and imports. Foreign lists are translated into English and analysed, which turns an unreadable label into a real check ([shopping in a foreign language](/blog/vegan-grocery-shopping-foreign-language/)).

What Verify Veg does not do:

- **No nutrition score.** It does not rate calories, additives or organic status.
- **No cosmetics.** Food and drink only.
- **No certification.** It cannot certify a product as halal, kosher, vegan or allergen-free, or detect cross-contamination and undeclared ingredients.

## Side by side

| What you're comparing | Verify Veg | Yuka |
|---|---|---|
| Main question | Can I eat this on my diet? | Is this good for my health? |
| How you check | Barcode lookup or AI photo scan | Barcode scan against its own database |
| Diets covered | Ten modes: vegan, vegetarian, Jain, kosher, halal, no beef, no pork, gluten-free, lactose-free, nut-free | Premium alerts: vegetarian/vegan, pork-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, soy-free, sulfite-free, palm oil-free |
| Health scoring | No | Yes: nutritional quality, additives, organic aspect |
| Custom avoid list | Up to 200 custom ingredients (Pro) | Not documented by Yuka |
| Foreign-language labels | Translates them into English | Not recognized outside French, English, Italian, German, Spanish |
| Missing product | Photograph the ingredient list | Add it to the database |
| Offline use | Barcode scans and offline checks unlimited | Premium offline mode |
| Price | Free; Pro adds unlimited AI label scans | Free; Premium 15 euros a year |

## Pricing, and what you get for it

Yuka is free to download and scan. Premium costs 15€ a year on Yuka's own premium page, adding offline mode, an advanced search bar, unlimited history and the diet alerts ([Yuka](https://yuka.io/en/premium-member), retrieved 2026-09-24). The German listing gives the same 15 EUR a year price.

Verify Veg is free. Its site FAQ says barcode scans and offline checks have no limit, AI label scans count toward 10 free scans a month, and Pro adds unlimited AI scans and up to 200 custom ingredients with a free trial ([Verify Veg](https://verify-veg.com/), retrieved 2026-09-24). No Pro price is published there.

## Offline use

Yuka's offline mode is Premium only; the free tier needs a connection.

Verify Veg keeps barcode scans and offline checks unlimited and stores history offline. Download a language before you travel, its site advises, and the same modes then work offline ([scanning food labels without a signal](/blog/offline-food-scanning-travel/)).

## Database reach and the barcode gap

Yuka's database holds 4 million food products by its own count. Verify Veg's barcode scan uses Open Food Facts, which listed more than 4.7 million products on 2026-09-24 ([Open Food Facts](https://world.openfoodfacts.org/), retrieved 2026-09-24). Both are large, and both have gaps, especially for local brands.

The difference shows when a product is missing. Yuka asks you to fill in the information; Verify Veg falls back to the camera. In Tokyo, Seoul or Bangkok that fallback matters more than database size, because Yuka does not recognize a foreign-language list at all ([Japan](/food/japan/common-ingredients/), [Thailand](/food/thailand/common-ingredients/)).

One more difference: Yuka is established, with 85 million users claimed; Verify Veg is newer, with 3 US ratings on 2026-09-24.

## Which app should you pick?

Yuka suits shoppers asking about nutrition or additives who shop at home in a language they read, and want cosmetics covered. Verify Veg suits shoppers asking about diet compatibility: halal, kosher, Jain, no beef, no pork, gluten-free, lactose-free and nut-free, and anyone checking a label abroad.

Plenty of people should keep both: they overlap less than the shared label "food scanner" suggests, and neither replaces reading the package. [Check the label before you buy](/blog/scan-before-you-buy/), then treat a scanner as a second opinion, not a certificate.

## The bottom line

Yuka scores health; Verify Veg checks diets. Yuka's rating comes from nutrition, additives and organic status, and its alerts stop at vegetarian, vegan, pork-free and a short avoid-list. Verify Veg answers whether the ingredients fit one of ten diets, reads a photographed label when the barcode fails, and translates labels you cannot read.

**Check before you eat.** The Verify Veg app scans a barcode or reads an ingredient list from a photo and flags ingredients against your diet (vegan, vegetarian, halal, kosher, Jain and more). [Download on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/verifyveg-vegan-scanner/id6758276834) - Android is coming soon.

*Written by Samir Narain, founder of Verify Veg. Verify Veg helps people check packaged food against their diet by scanning barcodes and reading ingredient lists from photos.*

*Note: Verify Veg provides ingredient-based compatibility checks, not certification. Recipes and preparations vary by restaurant, region and cook, so always confirm with the restaurant, brand or vendor.*