How Do We Score Food Products?

July 11, 2022
2
min read
Holly keeNAN
Environmental journalist
Outdoors enthusiast

Where do we source our data? 

Ecological Impact - To measure the environmental impact of individual food products, we use Eco score. An independent intuitive first launched Eco score in France in 2021. They assess the environmental aspects associated with a product over its life cycle.

Nutritional Value - Unlike the ecological impact score, food manufacturers and companies have become more transparent and honest about the nutritional value of their food products.

Therefore, to calculate the overall Nutri score, we use information that has been made available by the manufacturers. To find the nutritional data we need to create the scores, we use Open Food Facts

How are the scores calculated?

Ecological Scores - To calculate the ecological score of food products eco score takes into account the lifecycle of the food products and any data provided by the manufacturers, such as the recyclability of products and the origins of ingredients.  

The Agrybaylise database provides the life cycle assessment, and it takes into account all the stages of a food product's life and how it impacts the environment. The life cycle stages include agriculture, transportation, packaging, processing, etc.

In addition, the life cycle assessment also looks at how food products contribute towards major environmental issues such as climate change, water quality, air quality, impact on soils, etc.

Nutritional Score - There are two aspects we consider when determining the nutritional value of a food product.

We break down all the nutrients in the food product and divide them into either positive or negative nutrients. The nutritional value makes up 70% of the score.

Difficulties of ecological data collection

Collecting data on the ecological impact of each food product can be highly complex. Food companies often resist transparency about supply chains. Due to this, the data reflects an “average” reality that only allows the comparison of food products of different categories but not identical products from other production methods. For example, two packets of milk chocolate biscuits will receive a similar life cycle score. However, we are constantly gaining more information and insights to expand our databases. 


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