Dive Brief:
- Cash rewards are being offered to inventors of personal food scanners, the latest rendition of Horizon Prizes' challenges, meant to inspire innovations in different areas.
- Horizon is looking for personal food scanners that can "analyze food composition, nutrition facts, and potentially harmful ingredients such as allergens," according to Medical Daily.
- Horizon is planning to award a total of 1 million euros (approximately $1.1 million) to the top three scanner inventors.
Dive Insight:
Fitness apps with dietary components already proliferate the market, but a personal food scanner would focus more on the food that is consumed rather than the energy that is expended.
Having an accurate personal food scanner would hold the industry strictly accountable to the nutrition facts and ingredients that appear on a product's label. This could also accentuate issues that food and beverage companies are facing, such as needing to replace artificial ingredients, reduce sugar, and remove trans fats.