What is KaiWise?

KaiWise is a nutrition scanner app created to help everyday people make better food choices. Designed for users across New Zealand & Australia, it breaks down complex food labels into a simple colour-coded traffic light system. The app supports clearer decision-making around ingredients, additives, & nutritional content for families, health-conscious individuals, & people with specific dietary needs.

The Vision

The idea for KaiWise began with founder Peter Bird’s personal health journey. After improving his own wellbeing through better food choices, Peter wanted to create a tool that could do the same for others. His goal was to make food information more accessible, trustworthy, & useful. Many people find food labels confusing or overwhelming, & KaiWise was created to change that.

Why UpShift

KaiWise came to UpShift with a clear purpose & a strong sense of direction. Our role was to take that vision & build a user-friendly, locally relevant tool from the ground up. We provided end-to-end support including:

• Product strategy
• UX & UI design
• Mobile app development
• Backend architecture
• Ongoing collaboration & technical support

What We Built

The KaiWise app enables users to:

• Scan barcodes, nutrition labels, or receipts
• View instant traffic light ratings for food products
• Access deeper insights into additives & ingredients
• Make confident decisions based on clear, science-informed content
• The interface is designed to be friendly & intuitive. It presents complex information in a way that is easy to understand without losing accuracy or detail.

Supporting People with Diabetes

KaiWise is also being developed with a strong focus on supporting people living with diabetes. This direction is personal for UpShift founder Tama Easton, whose son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of three. That lived experience, combined with UpShift’s long-term involvement in Stanford’s DiabetesWise initiative, brought an added layer of insight to the project.

Using artificial intelligence & advanced nutritional analysis, KaiWise estimates the Glycemic Load (GL) of products & displays it in a traffic light format. This helps users understand not just how many carbohydrates are in a product, but how quickly those carbohydrates are likely to affect blood sugar.

KaiWise also calculates carbohydrate content based on realistic serving sizes, addressing a common frustration in packaged food labelling. By presenting carb percentages & estimated GLs in clear, practical terms, the app gives users a more meaningful sense of how foods may impact their blood sugar.

This feature set is designed to support not only people with diabetes, but also parents, athletes, & anyone who wants to better understand how food affects energy & wellbeing.

Collaboration

The KaiWise team has been highly engaged throughout the project. We’ve worked closely with them to refine the product as it developed, ensuring it stayed true to its original mission. Regular feedback & testing cycles shaped both functionality & the user experience.

Early Impact

Although still in pre-release, KaiWise has already received positive feedback from initial users. The traffic light system has been praised for its clarity & ease of use. It is helping people feel more informed & confident about the food choices they make.

What Makes It Special

KaiWise stands out not just for what it does, but for why it exists. It is more than a food scanner. It is a health empowerment tool built to support real people in their everyday choices. By combining smart technology with local data & thoughtful design, it offers a simple & powerful way to make food information easier to understand.