Kyodo Printing Co. has announced the launch of a new service “RiaShoku” which assigns a score to a person’s diet.

While the Japanese term “RiaShoku” means “real food”, the eponymous service is based on marketing data of people’s eating habits.

Its online panel respondents submit pictures of their meals to RiaShoku service provider which then conducts quantitative analysis of food shown in the pictures based on criteria such as “who eats”, “why”, “what” and “how”.

The image recognition technology integrated in January 2019 has made it possible to capture such image data as food menu, ingredients and volume. It also allows calculating nutritional value of pictured food such as calories, proteins, salt and sugar content.

The new service measures “diet score” based on AI-powered image analysis and respondents’ age, gender, and body mass index (BMI).

RiaShoku’s “diet score” integrates four criteria proposed by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: nutritional balance, sugar intake, proteins for muscle tone, and caloric value, which help to gain insights on online panel respondents’ “real diet” from provided food images.

The “diet score” is part of the RiaShoku database service which the company offers to healthy food makers and healthcare providers.

The company plans to hold workshop events to spread knowledge about RiaShoku service capabilities, and intends to continue its work on enhancing the service functionality.

※ Image recognition technology and “diet score” provided by Link & Communication Inc.