Nutricalc Origins

The Eureka Moment

A long time ago in 1991, before the internet was around (Yes there really was a time without t’internet), NutriCalc founder, David Bartley was lying on a beach in Jersey when he had a ‘Eureka’ moment.  “Why don’t I write a computer program that works out the nutrition information for a recipe from the ingredient information?” he said out loud to his wife Sue who thought he’d gone just a teeny bit mad because he was a lab manager not a software developer! “There’s nothing else on the market” he said, “and I think I can do it”.  Back then, and for many years afterwards, adding nutrition information to food labels was optional but there was strict legislation about how it should be done if you opted in.

From seed to germination   

David went home, and with his experience and understanding of the chemical composition of foods, and his knowledge of the computer language ‘Basic’, he started the rather laborious task of manually entering over 40,000 pieces of information into a text file, during the evenings, whilst working full time as a lab manager. He then wrote all the twiddly, clever bits that factor in the cooking processes etc. and after several months, the software was complete! After thorough testing, he decided on the rather obvious name ‘NutriCalc’ for the package, and it was marketed to food manufacturers.  David was delighted when his first customer, Chivers Hartley, purchased their first licence, quickly followed by quite a few other household names, and was spurred on to develop the software further.

Fortunately, shortly after David wrote the software, McCance & Widdowson became available electronically which saved quite a few minutes I can tell you!

The product developed   

The software gradually developed from being a basic calculator to a pretty complex tool with in-built checks to keep users on track and lots of lovely new features that made it ideal for recipe development and reformulation.

Although always ideal for European countries, the labeling formats for several other countries were added over the years and software licenses were purchased in many countries around the world.

Since then, NutriCalc has developed in line with technological advances, new legislation/s and new data files and is now of course online.

Consistency of values and excellent customer service       

David, as you might expect from a typical scientist, was fastidious about checking the data and getting things right, and always offered unlimited support to his customers because he’s a very generous chap and wanted them to get it right too!  To this day, we’ve ensured that his values and the quality of data and support are upheld by the NutriCalc team.  Standards here are just as high as they have always been, no half measures – get it right or don’t do it!

Being specialists to the food industry, we support companies who make, sell or supply food, and those who support them.  We believe that, along with our attention to detail, our unique combined experience of analysing food products and our willingness to go the extra mile to support our lovely clients, is what helps us maintain our position as the Industry Standard tool, chosen by everyone who, like us, also cares about getting things right.