No GMOs In Your Soup? There’s An App For That

So much of the news lately has been depressing for us little guys who want to be smart consumers and practice healthy eating habits. Monsanto won a Supreme Court case against a lone Indiana farmer. Mega banks had their hands slapped for illegally foreclosing on people’s homes. And many retail outlets barely shrugged when they found out that over 800 people died slaving away in a sweatshop that made clothes for them. Don’t get down and don’t fret because there is an app for that. Or at least, there’s an app that will help to level the playing field. It’s called Buycott.

Buycott is an app that you can download to your smart phone and use on your next shopping trip. Scan the?bar-code?into the app and it shows you a tree of who owns the company that makes the product you are considering purchasing. If you’re wanting to support a cause, it can do that, too.

Here’s how it works. Once you’ve created an account (you can log in with Facebook if you prefer), you’ll get a series of screens that explain the app. You’ll be given the option of joining any existing campaigns. Some of the campaigns include gay rights, labor rights, and social responsibility, just to name a few. Now find an item you want to buy. For example, here’s what scanning a bottle of Campbell’s V-8 juice shows:

 

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Notice it shows you the product that you scanned it, as well as the contact information. Next, you can view the “family tree” for a product. In other words, is the product owned by a larger conglomerate? In this case, it’s pretty simple. The family tree shows you the products made by this company. You may need to scroll in order to see the whole tree.

Here’s one screenshot from the V-8 search:

 

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If there were campaigns that you’ve chosen that are connected to the product, you could also check that out. In this case, the user here didn’t have any campaigns connected to V-8. Let’s say you chose to join the campaign to “Demand GMO Labeling.” You can click on the “Campaign” button and it will show you more information. In this case, it shows you what a label would look like if a product contained GMOs. Plus, you also get more specific information on that issue:

 

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The high volume of users is probably a testament to its friendly interface, and the type of information it has. Users can use the campaigns that are already included in the app. But they can also add products, and create their own campaigns. While the product was developed mainly by a liberal blogger, it’s not exclusive to those causes. In fact, there’s a campaign called “Avoid George Soros.” Soros is a business magnate who also supports progressive causes. In other words, the app can adjust itself to the cause of each user.

The Buycott app is relatively new, so it will be interesting to see how this app transforms people’s buying habits. It’s certainly one way that many arm-chair activists can easily use to get involved. It allows them to become more active in the causes they believe in without having to risk arrest to do it. Only time will tell whether or not it influences the business practices of corporations. It would be nice for once to have the scales tipped toward the consumer, if even a little bit.