Tech Leans Into the MAHA Market

By Jennifer Galardi, Contributor to The Kennedy Beacon

Here come the MAHA apps.

As the MAHA movement marches on, gathering political wins, tech companies are responding to consumer demands to help them lead healthier lives. Providing services that range from scanning every day products to connecting customers with farmers, a few apps are leading the way to help expand knowledge and choice for the every day American.

Yuka is one app gaining lots of attention. A free download on your mobile devise, the app enables users to scan product barcodes and evaluate each product’s nutritional values, instantly listing calorie count as well as sugar, saturated fat, protein and fiber. amounts. The app also offers a premium service for $20 a year, which provides nutritional scores even when the product lacks a barcode.

Founded in 2017 by two brothers in France, Yuka rates almost every consumer product that affects health, from food to personal care, based on a rating system from “poor” to “excellent.” In early March, the platform received wide recognition from an article in the Wall Street Journal, which hailed Yuka as “the MAHA friendly app that’s driving food companies crazy.” It launched in the States in 2020 and racked up 68 million users worldwide, ranking as a top health-and-fitness app. However, some critics comment that if you need an app to tell you if a food is healthy or not, “you probably have your answer.”

Still, with the magnitude of health information available on the internet these days, many American consumers have difficulty sorting fact from fiction. Is low fat the way to go, or has fat, particularly animal fat, been unfairly demonized? What about seed oils and sugar? It’s increasingly tough to find consensus on nutritional information coming from influencers and experts alike. And while decision makers within the MAHA movement are trying to offer clarity and shatter long held myths around various foods, the average American consumer often remains confused.

Indeed, the app seems to run on an outdated model for nutrition, recommending food choices many MAHA supporters would question. The app claims to judge products based on nutritional quality, additives, and their organic status, but it miscategorizes some foods considered essential for good health. For example, Yuka gives a “poor” rating to favorite fats such as ghee and coconut oil, warning that they are “too caloric” and the saturated fat ratio is “bad,” despite an ‘organic’ label.

However, the too caloric label does not detract from Bragg’s organic olive oil rating, which is “excellent” according to Yuka. In addition Goodpop’s green apple flavored “Star Wars Pops” are labeled “excellent,” according to the app – a rating that would likely appall MAHA Moms. Even with 16 grams of sugar per serving, the app describes the amount as “low impact.”

The app does not provide a full ingredient list to discern what gives the pops their lime green hue. When looking at the brand's ingredients on the website, the pop is colored with spirulina and turmeric, but also lists “natural flavors,” an ingredient that raises eyebrows for many in the MAHA movement.

Indeed, some of Yuka’s nutrition standards appear to be at odds with some of MAHA’s. After agreeing to an interview for this article, the company ultimately declined to comment.

In addition, scanning a protein powder, such as Garden of Eden’s organic grass fed whey, the app’s notification states, “Yuka does not rate products that are high in protein.” It also doesn't weigh in on supplement products.

Yuka does offer an effective tool for change – public shaming – with its “call out the brand” function that allows users to send pre-written emails to the offending companies. There are also pre-crafted comments for Instagram and X.

Another app gaining name recognition and users is the Seed Oil Scout app, which helps consumers looking for healthy food options to “dine fearlessly” while eating out. Like the Yuka app, it also allows users to scan products and check ingredients in grocery items and packaged foods.

The app claims that “our food has been corrupted,” and seed oils have “taken global dining captive” while “butter, EVOO, and tallow are near impossible to find at restaurants.” For those who agree, the app offers an easy way to stick to one’s dietary preferences anywhere in the U.S. with a map locator. Users can enter preferences for restaurants (i.e. “paleo,” “grass-fed,” “low FodMap”), as well as discover farms near them that sell raw milk, a MAHA favorite.

Founded in 2022, the Seed Oil Scout has raised just $270,000 dollars in seed round (no pun intended) funding. The app costs $34.99 a month to use past an initial three-day trial.

While even the most health conscious Americans continue to debate the health ramifications of seed oils, most MAHA supporters are staunchly opposed to them.

From the Farm

Creators of food apps are not the only ones innovating in the food-tech space. Take ‘From the Farm,’ based in Utah, launched by AJ Richards and Brooke Ence. The organizations’ mission appears directly aligned with the agricultural goals of the larger MAGA/MAHA movement. As the founders state on their website, their mission is “ cultivating a legacy of freedom and independence in [sic] food choices.”

Richards and Ence, who call ‘From the Farm’ a digital farmers market, are optimistic their app will catch on. “Seeing this community rally behind small farmers and healthier living gives me hope for our future,” Richards says.

A self-described homesteader whose family has been ranching since 1916, Richards created the From the Farm website (which is free to use) to connect health-conscious shoppers to local, small-to-medium sized farmers and ranchers who want to sell their products directly to consumers with “no corporate agribusiness allowed.”

Richards says ‘From the Farm’ provides economic support for small farmers and enables them to push back on “bad local and federal policies that threaten our food supply” – a point he elaborates on in this video.

In an email to The Kennedy Beacon, Richards also said that his tool helps farmers overcome many of the challenges they face in the marketplace such as marketing, sales, ad spend, and logistics, to help them “focus on raising food, keep more of their revenue, and thrive.” He says the current food supply system leaves small farmers with scraps. “Middlemen take 70% of their revenue—while consumers get nutrient-poor, mass-produced foods driving chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes,” wrote Richards.

The platform allows users to put in their zip code to find local farms selling everything from grass fed meats and dairy products to artisanal goods – and to “shake the hand that feeds you.” Even if there are no providers nearby, the app will inform users if the farm ships its products. It’s part digital farmer’s market, part Airbnb. It also categorizes each farm with labels such as “regenerative,” “grass fed and finished,” and “all natural (no hormones or added antibiotics)” to name just a few.

Richards hopes to have brick-and-mortar locations that serve as locally-sourced grocery stores and pickup/drop-off spots for online orders, plus a wholesale option for restaurants and bulk buyers to make sourcing local more feasible.

Ultimately, education and transparency are the best ways to empower Americans to make healthier food choices and help shift the current food supply paradigm. Yuka, Seed Oil Scout, and From the Farm are promising starts that signal tech is ready to embrace the MAHA agenda.