Tribune. Responsible consumption applications are multiplying and meeting with growing success: according to an IFOP study, 25% of consumers use a nutritional application such as Yuka or Open Food Facts. If they were initially aimed at better informing consumers about the nutritional qualities of food products, the logic of transparency which they embody could well transform the practices of industrialists far beyond the agro-food sector alone.
In June 2021, the start-up Yuka was condemned at first instance by the Paris commercial court following a complaint from the Federation of French delicatessen companies for “unfair and deceptive commercial practice”. This group of processed meats considered that the poor score attributed to products containing nitrites and nitrates was unjustified. But this legal response seems to go against the general trend towards making industrialists responsible.
Faced with this underlying trend, the Intermarché sign, for example, announced that it had reformulated 900 of its recipes by removing 142 additives. Rather than attacking messengers carrying the voice of consumers, food players are therefore gradually tending to integrate the existence of these tools into their strategies to preserve their sales. But what would happen if this logic of transparency extended to all production sectors?
Ecological impact and social practice
Extending this logic would first require the definition of new evaluation criteria that are potentially more complex to develop than nutritional scores, in order to measure aspects such as ecological impact or even social practices. Certain applications have also paved the way by integrating an “eco-score” designed in cooperation with the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe) and taking into account the impact of certain products on the environment.
The BuyOrNot application relays boycott calls linked to the social impact of producing companies (employment of minors, poor working conditions, corruption) and provides for the creation of a section offering alternative products.
Another potentially determining criterion could be the lifespan and the degree of repairability of the products: both cheaper in the long term and more responsible, the most durable products would logically be preferred by consumers.
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