Nobody has the time to stand at a supermarket aisle to decipher the complicated ingredients list at the back of a product. People with food intolerances and allergies find it hard to get their hands on food products that suit their intake. People following certain diets also find it difficult to get the right products. Peel is an app that uses OCR technology to help its users quickly analyze the ingredients list in accordance to their diet requirements. It saves time and effort, and is highly useful for people that have different limitations in their food intake. In conversation with Co-founder of Peel, Rami Hallal, we learn more about the app and how it can be used.
Peel detects ingredients on food labels and highlights ones that do not fit your food intolerance (Gluten, Lactose, Yeast, …) or the diet you follow (Vegan, Palm Oil Free, No Artificial Sweeteners, …).
Joe K. > co-founder and the technical lead on the team (he’s the brain behind developing the algorithm that uses OCR to detect and classify ingredients off of food labels). Previously worked in dev studios and a bunch of startups.
Ralph Choueiri > co-founder and the marketing lead on the team who does his magic and talks to users, gets them to discover Peel, gets their feedback, and then feeds that into the product roadmap. Ralph was previously a GM of his family business (Audiotec group) and also was part of the OLX team in Lebanon.
Rami Hallal > I’ve previously worked at Booz Allen Hamilton as a consultant. Then joined Yahoo based out of Dubai for a couple of years. Then founded my first startup Blink My Car. Ralph and Joe were part of that journey too.
We all met a while back. We’re childhood friends
Prefer not to mention that. We’re still a small team, mostly relying on experts to support our endeavor.
I’ve had Gluten and Cow Dairy intolerance for quite some time now. And I’ve always found it hard to decode ingredients on food labels, especially when thedoes not have a certification (e.g. Gluten Free). So I thought there must be a better way…
Bottom line the idea was a solution to a personal problem 🙂
The product should be helpful to anyone who suffers from food intolerance or follows a certain diet and faces a food product with a questionable ingredient, this can happen:
For scale, 8% of children in the USA (2 students per classroom) suffer from a food allergy. (source: CDC). This does not even account for food intolerances amongst children.
Add to that: adults. Add to that: people who follow strict diets, beyond allergies/intolerances e.g. Vegan diet, Paleo diet, Palm Oil Free diet.
(*) Check the question on competition
We mainly plant the seed and communicate with users via online communities on Facebook and Reddit. From there on, word of mouth has been the main driver of user acquisition.
No separate team for the marketing effort.
We all do marketing, we all talk to users. Helps everyone be on the same page and on the same level of knowledge with regards to what our users are suggesting and more importantly what are their latest needs (in relation to how Peel is evolving).
Definitely product development.
It took us 12+ months to get our scanning algorithm to achieve a very high confidence score, which then made us comfortable to launch the product.
Competitors 1: Barcode scanning apps – although we believe we could complement each other.
Competitors 2: Google
The reason why Peel is versatile (referring to the answer to the target market question above) is that it does not rely on barcode scanning technology (other barcode scanning apps are at the mercy of static barcode databases, limited to geographical regions resulting in limited data points, sometimes outdated).
Peel relies on Optical Character Recognition, so it reads and analyses ingredients lists off of any label or food menu or brochure. With Peel, as long as there are ingredients, in English, you’re getting a real-time assessment reflective of the latest studies and findings for every diet available on Peel.
Three more benefits when using Peel:
Yes, we’re working on launching Android 🙂
Know a great start-up story or want to share your own? Write to us at interact@insidermediacorp.com and we will get back to you. For more updates follow Venture Mirror on Facebook
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