JollyGut

Following special diets or trying to choose the best and healthiest products can be sometimes - if not most of the time - really hard and rigorous work. From research, to checking ingredients, learning about hidden ingredients and visiting different shops, everything can feel overwhelming or limiting at first.

But what if I told you there is an easier, free way to take care of your health by managing your diet without stressing about it? More exactly, in a hassle-free, stress-free, fast and convenient way. Well, today we’ll talk about an app that revolutionised and simplified the process for us: the JollyGut App. The team behind this amazing project was kind enough to talk about the app, its functions and future plans. Their message is below and hopefully it will make you aware of this

‘healthy and useful tool’ - as the team describe it

that you can use to check the products you want to buy in seconds and answer the questions you may have.

I. How did it start?

Let’s find out a little bit more about how the JollyGut project started and its purpose:

“Russian co-founder Denis came up with the idea of JollyGut getting physically prepared for another extreme Transvulcania trail leading across the island of La Palma.

Denis: ‘I had a coach at that time who told me to start taking supplements (magnesium, zinc, etc) 2 months before the race. I thought:

"Our bodies developed during millions of years of evolution to obtain all required nutrients from natural foods, not from chemical plants which churn out chemicals erroneously called supplements".

I used a US food composition database as my starting point to look for foods that contain the nutrients prescribed by my coach; then I browsed online grocers for available products and duly recorded everything in rows on a spreadsheet. I spent 2 full days doing that, just to create a shopping list for only the first 3 days of my 2-months training period. At that time I understood that eating healthily is a very difficult task, which requires an algorithmic approach to choosing and ordering.’

Jolly Gut is a new food tech app that simplifies the food shopping experience and helps people select the best foods for them. Only consumers themselves empowered by AI can make food companies produce healthy and nutrient-rich food as originally intended by evolutionary mechanisms. Healthy eating is no longer considered a trend, but rather a lifestyle for all kinds of customers. From young parents to athletes, from the elderly to office workers – we are all trying to incorporate a more balanced diet into our everyday lives. People with allergies and intolerances strive to make informed decisions before purchasing goods at grocery stores as this directly affects their health.

That’s where JollyGut helps.”

II. The Team

Let’s meet the team behind the project:

Denis Smyslov, Co-Founder

“The team behind JollyGut are the same concerned shoppers like you - they struggle to pick the healthiest product on the shelf while being bombarded by flashy food labels and confusing ingredients lists every single time they step into a grocery store. Each of us has our own struggles related to food - food allergies, dietary preferences, health, and fitness goals. That is why we developed a handy grocery shopping tool that would not only allow us to achieve these goals and keep on the path of our chosen lifestyle but other customers as well who face these struggles every single day.

It’s important to point out that we are an international team - grew up in different cultural environments, but united by a passion for food.

The other two co-founders are Erwin Parviz and Eric Personne. I met Erwin ages ago — we had the same mountain guide in Chamonix and went through quite a few exciting experiences together. Erwin has an applied math background and spent most of his career in the banking industry engineering algorithmic products. Eric met Erwin many years ago — they used to work for the same bank early in their careers. Eric majored in physics and is an endurance runner who has accomplished such pinnacles of super marathons as Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc (160 km horizontal, 10,000 meters vertical), Le Diagonal des Foux (the Madmen's Diagonal) on the Isle of Reunion.

Our CTO is Stuart Reed, he made a successful exit as a CTO of a startup that also dealt with gathering and analyzing a lot of data. I met Stuart in a co-working space, and we had spent a lot of time together — both in the office and in pubs exchanging ideas and discussing various topics before realizing that Stuart is a great fit for our start-up.”

III. The App

“With the app, you can:

1. Evaluate the quality of foods

Want to see what’s inside your food? Snap it! JollyGut instantly tells you if the product fits your diet or food preferences.

• the app helps you avoid your allergens. You simply need to select them on your profile: nuts, dairy, gluten, or other 11 are listed there.

• the app helps you follow a specific diet - vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, FODMAP, etc.

• the app helps you follow a healthy food diet by informing which products are highly processed, full of additives, not organic, contain palm oil or added sugar

2. Get recommendations for healthier product alternatives

JollyGut smart also is here to offer the best alternatives keeping in mind price, dietary preferences, and healthiness.

3. Compare prices

Get recommendations as to where the selected food item costs less.”

IV. Why the JollyGut App?

“As mentioned above, our customers are the same concerned shoppers just like you and me: they have health and fitness goals, they struggle avoiding their food allergens or picking foods that align with their dietary preferences, they have sustainability goals. These customers are misled and confused by food labels.

We strive to help our users build healthier eating patterns that fully comply with their personal factors, whether they shop in-store or online.

With our A.I. - powered food-centric search engine and navigation system, we want to empower our users to see their food for what it really is and to eradicate the information asymmetry that has long prevailed between the food industry and them”

What is the best aspect of the App?

“Compared to the other food scanning apps out there, JollyGut allows you to scan products from a safe distance with a single snap on your phone. The app uses visual recognition while scanning food packages, so all that is required to do is point your phone camera at the package and the app will instantly retrieve all the relevant nutritional data about the chosen product.”

V. Future plans

Do you consider extending the app to other countries as well?

“We have limited ourselves to the UK market, not to spread our marketing budget too thin. But, we have rolled out all the infrastructure in the US and will launch there when we decide the moment is ready.”

What are some plans to develop the project further?

“Our next target is multi-product recognition which will be well suited for the fast-developing smart glasses technology.”

VI. Everyone loves it

What do people that use the app usually say?

“We received great feedback that mostly focuses on the easiness of using the app: you simple snap the product and retrieve all relevant nutritional data about it within seconds. It’s a great tool for customers with food allergens as it allows them to discover new food products that do not contain their allergens - the greatest feedbacks are coming from gluten-free and dairy-free users. Vegans are able to discover vegan foods that are accidentally vegan and not labeled with the ‘vegan’ tag.”

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There are obviously a lot of reasons to love and use the app, particularly for its helpfulness and effectiveness in assisting us when making dietary choices in shops. Also, using it so easily and receiving great results and information fast are definitely huge advantages.

I’d like to transmit a big thank you to Denis and the whole team for taking the time to answer the questions and present the app in detail so we can use it and benefit from all its functions. Shopping for healthy food has never been so easy.

And now it’s your turn. Install or use the JollyGut App online, try it for yourself and leave feedback if you like it, which I’m sure you’ll do. You’ll be welcomed with a lot of excitement on the JollyGut App Instagram as well so don’t be shy to post about it on your feed or story. Besides, don’t forget about its website where you can find all the information you might need.