Sonia Couto: MenuSano Is a Nutrition Analysis Software for the Food Service Industry

MenuSano is a nutrition analysis software for the food service industry. Providing nutrition-compliant labels that replace having to send food to a lab.

Tell us about yourself?

I’ve been in tech for over 15 years. As a breast cancer survivor, I’m passionate about health, and I believe the future of health is to provide people access to technology that will allow people to have control over their health.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

I would tell myself to always follow my gut, and surround myself with people who will who will work with me, not for me.

What problem does your business solve?

We provide compliant nutrition labels for food manufacturers who are producing and exporting and restaurants who are required to provide calorie information on menus.

We service a wide variety of industries in the food service sector. Our service replaces a lab which is time-consuming and very expensive.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

The inspiration came from a group that wanted access to nutrition information when eating out. We wondered why we did not have access to it so we could make healthier choices.

So as techies we decided to build a tool for the industry to encourage them to provide consumers with the information at the point of sale. This helps people with diabetes, heart disease, special diets, or people who just want or need to be healthier.

What is your magic sauce?

The magic sauce is we bring in government-sourced databases just like labs use. All our clients need to do is create a recipe and MenuSano does all the work and calculations per compliance regulations in Canada, The US, and UK.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We want to be the go to for compliant nutrition labelling. We want to expand our databases to other countries; our goal is to be in Central America, Australia, and EU by 2025.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

We initially build the application for restaurants not realizing restaurants would be fearful of providing the information to consumers.

During COVID with restaurants shutting down we learned food manufacturers were in fact our market. So we have updated the software to serve all sectors of food service with a large focus on manufacturing.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

We want to extend our service in partnerships with food delivery companies such as Uber Eats, Skip the Dishes, retirement homes, and hospitals.