French data startup ClearKarma wants to build global food info register

Founded in 2012, the Paris-headquartered startup kickstarted data pooling efforts in restaurants, conducting around ten different pilots to compile information on the ingredients used in meals served. So far, ClearKarma has worked with businesses in Spain, France, Austria and Germany and now aims to expand its reach further across Europe and into work with manufacturers and retailers.

Simplifying a 'complex' area​

Sylvie Chin, founder and CEO of ClearKarma, said the aim is to create a “central register” ​of all facts, figures and information associated with food and beverage products; simplifying a very “complex” ​and de-centralised field. Importantly, Chin said it about tracing product information, rather than the product itself.

“You have the goods and the information and the best is to be able to make the link between them both. But, what you can see is that the goods can move everywhere and it's usually linked with a lot of manual re-entry of information and that's what we want to avoid when we have a central register,” ​she told NutraIngredients.

ClearKarma has already build strong expertise in food label validation, for example, which would assist consumers in understanding and trusting what is in their food, where it comes from and how it is processed but also centralise important product information for industry.

This label information, she said, could be automatically translated into 85 languages with a machine-learning system and team of experts ensuring the food vocabulary is compliant. “When we get a template for Japan for food bars, for example, we can do that for any company who wants to export to Japan. We're creating a global standard for data; data which is important for the consumer and compliance.”​

She said that ultimately, ClearKarma's central register should be open to everyone – consumers, manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, and anyone involved or interested in the food sector.

However, she acknowledged it would be important to protect recipes from complete public access and just provide the essential, compliant product information. Recipes provided to understand this, she said, would be protected with ClearKarma's blockchain-backed encryption technology.

Food is medicine, if applied properly...​

Chin said once large enough, the database could prove invaluable insight for consumers with specific dietary needs or medical concerns and ClearKarma is working on ways to enable quick searches.

The company has started work on an algorithm, for example, that would enable consumers to use filters in the database, she said, to search for recommended foods or products to avoid, according to things like their age, sex, where they live or certain medical conditions like diabetes, cancer and heart issues.

“Imagine ClearKarma as a big Google but we have structured data. Google is giving results more like whatever content is more popular; we're giving up content and food results which are most suitable for health, according to the main research and experts agreeing,”​ she said.

“...I think that food is medicine, if you know how to apply it properly. So, having the data and creating the filters can help us create an algorithm for health.”​

Chin said the algorithm is a working process, as the team works to update it according to latest research and expertise in certain areas, and certainly would never replace nutritionists but could be a useful tool for the future.

For the time being, ClearKarma will remain focused on three core focuses: auditing, sourcing and alerts, she said. Auditing is what the company is doing right now with food labels, she said, and once enough label information is compiled this could potentially be used to swing purchasing decisions or sourcing plans. Ultimately, once the database is solid, ClearKarma will be able to issue alerts when there are product recalls or product concerns.

“We're not there yet but if we put all these things together, this is possible,”​ she said.

The central, global database​

Within the next 12 months, the company hopes to have an open, user-friendly database available to the public and professionals in food.

Chin said de-centralised product information is a “big problem”​ right now in food, she said, because information is in silos.

“Everybody is working with their own database; in their own country and of course when you have a food crisis, that's where you see the system is broken because it takes far too long to get the right alert and know where the product is. If all this was integrated, at least some part of the information (we don't want to know all the details, it's still important that food manufacturers have their own systems to manage their own differences) but at least a certain set of information that is important to the consumer for food safety and compliance should be in a central database and a global one,” ​she said.

“...The global standard we're building needs to be a flexible standard. I think if we have the right tools, everything is possible.”​

She said ClearKarma is now looking for “pioneering companies”​ to work on pilot programs to develop the system further.