How berryl calculates.

Nutrition data from BLS 4.0 and Open Food Facts

For generic foods, berryl uses the German Food Composition Database (Bundeslebensmittelschlüssel, BLS) version 4.0. It is published by the Max Rubner-Institut under the CC BY 4.0 license. Branded products, for example after a barcode scan, come from Open Food Facts, a worldwide open database (ODbL license); it usually only has calories and macronutrients. For selenium, berryl also uses the US database USDA FoodData Central, and for caffeine, data from USDA and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).

Generic foods are the same everywhere: an apple, cooked rice and a boiled egg have very similar values in Germany, the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. For packaged foods sold in your country, scan the barcode or check the label.

Calculations use the exact values. Rounding only happens for display: calories and grams to whole numbers, salt to one decimal place, vitamins and minerals to at most two decimal places. Energy is shown in kcal; 1 kcal is about 4.2 kJ.

Supplements

For supplements, the label counts. The values come from our product catalog, or berryl reads them from your photo and you confirm them. What you tick off is added to your food. The interaction notes and the plan view use your planned routine.

Reference values and upper limits

berryl checks whether a value “fits” against the reference values you choose in the settings, for example NIH (United States), UK (COMA/SACN), NHMRC (Australia and New Zealand), EFSA (European Union) or DGE (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). The app starts with the values for your country: NIH in the US, the UK values in the UK, NHMRC in Australia and New Zealand. They depend on age and sex. For professionals there are also study-based target values. You use them explicitly at your own responsibility and should check the evidence behind them yourself. On this website we use the NIH values for men aged 31 to 50 as an example.

For upper limits berryl uses the EFSA values, for example 100 µg (4,000 IU) of vitamin D a day for adults; the US upper limit is the same. For nutrients that only cause problems over a longer time, such as vitamin D or calcium, berryl compares the average over several days (weekly average). For others, such as magnesium from supplements, each single day counts. Some upper limits apply only to supplements, not to food. For magnesium, for example, the EFSA upper limit of 250 mg refers only to magnesium from supplements and fortified foods (the US limit for supplemental magnesium is 350 mg).

The values for protein and fiber in the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand and the EU are listed on Protein and fiber.

Notes in the app

Notes in the app, for example when your total from several products is above an upper limit, are fixed rules maintained by the berryl team. Each one is based on a named source. No AI writes these notes, so it cannot make any up.

Limits

• Photos and portions are estimates. You can correct any amount.
• Reference values apply to healthy people. Pregnancy and breastfeeding have their own values; you can set your life stage in your profile. If you have a health condition, talk to your doctor or dietitian.
• berryl provides information and does not diagnose anything.

As of October 2026.