How SnackSmart® started

The photo above was taken in the hospital after she was given a piece of chocolate that had cashew in it.

At the time, we knew she was allergic to sesame. What we didn’t know is that if you’re allergic to sesame, you can also be allergic to cashews and pistachios. No one ever told us. Not the literature, and not either of her two allergologists. We simply didn’t know.

Within minutes, Melissa started feeling bad, and she was close to going into anaphylactic distress. We gave her the life-saving EpiPen shot we always kept within arm’s reach while we were on the phone with 911. When we got to the hospital, things got much worse. It took them a long time to stabilize her before things calmed down. She received multiple shots of adrenaline before her body stopped attacking itself.

Whenever we travel abroad, we rack our brains trying to figure out if a snack is safe for Melissa. We stand in stores staring at ingredient lists we can’t read. We try to translate. We ask questions. We debate. And more often than we’d like to admit, we simply refuse to give her something if we’re not sure.

Melissa had the idea to build SnackSmart®. We feel it’s a lifesaver. Not only for her, but for thousands of families living with the same fear, the same PTSD-like anxiety, and the same lack of certainty around the most basic thing in the world: eating food.

SnackSmart® is Melissa’s vision. Melissa’s ambition. Melissa’s design. Many aspects of the SnackSmart® app are shaped by her, and that’s what makes this so special for us.

We built SnackSmart® with the utmost care, based on how we live as parents of a severely food-allergic child. SnackSmart® makes our lives easier. We live with more confidence. That confidence gives Melissa more confidence too, and a happier childhood.

We built SnackSmart® around the real nuances we experience day in and day out, with a child whose life can be on the line with every bite:

• Scan a the ingredients of a food package and get an instant result of it contains any dangerous allergens.
• Linked allergens, to warn you about related allergens you might not realize are connected. We wish we had this years ago. If we did, we believe we could have avoided many scares and episodes.
• An easy-to-use interface that children intuitively understand and actually like using.
• The ability for a child to quickly share what they scanned with their parent.
• The ability, from any screen and at any moment, to turn the phone 90 degrees and show someone else, in the local language, what the allergens or sensitivities are. This is especially useful at restaurants, with waiters, chefs, servers, caregivers, and teachers. SnackSmart® supports 30+ languages.
• The ability to create multiple profiles for different users, kids, and needs, while still having an app that can feel approachable, even a little fun, because kids deserve that.

In one click, you can generate a printable and shareable allergy profile page with a photo and allergens, designed for real life: school, caregivers, grandparents, camps, travel, anywhere.

Today Melissa is 8 years old. She's been living with severe food allergies since she was about 1.5, when we innocently let her taste tahini, something many people consider healthy and even a “superfood.”

We continue daily treatment through microdosing allergens in small portions that are carefully monitored and guided by a leading allergy clinic. Even with treatment, the fear doesn’t disappear. Melissa has real anxiety around food. She’s very cautious, and she asks the adults around her, us, teachers, caregivers, to double and triple check. She does that for a reason.

We thank our beautiful daughter Melissa, our friends, colleagues, our team, and most importantly, all of our incredible users who share with us, every day, how SnackSmart® has improved their lives, and in some cases, saved their lives.

Melissa and our entire family thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

If you would like to reach out to us to share your story, please write us at mystory@snacksmart.ai